
Interest Factors in Primary 
Reading Material 

By 
Fannie Wyche Dunn 



Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the 

Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of 

Philosophy, in the Faculty of Philosophy, 

Columbia University 



Published by 

Ztatheti College, Columbia 1Hnibers(itp 

NEW YORK CITY 

I92I 



Interest Factors in Primary 
Reading Material 



By 
Fannie Wyche Dunn 



Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the 

Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of 

Philosophy, in the Faculty of Philosophy, 

Columbia University 



Published by 

tE^eatiatti College, Columbia Winibttiitp 

NEW YORK CITY 

I921 



Copyrighted, ig zi, by Fannie Wyche Dunn ^ O 

% 



^AN IS \m 



v^\ 



ACKNOWLEDGMENT 



c^ Only by the cooperation of many schools, teachers, and students 

of education has the study here reported been possible. Graduate 
^ students of Teachers College, of Johns Hopkins University, and of 
^ the University of Illinois shared in the necessary but tedious work 

_ of ranking samples of children's reading matter for interest and 

interest elements; fifteen New York City public schools and the 
Horace Mann School of Teachers College permitted the use of their 
primary grades for testing purposes; supervisors in the public 
schools of Petersburg, Virginia, and Los Angeles, California, and in 
the training schools of the educational department of the University 
of Arkansas, and of the State Normal Schools at Warrensburg, 
Missouri, and Farmville, Virginia, personally gave or directed the 
giving of tests in their schools; members of the faculties of Teachers 
College, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Illinois 
presented the problem to groups of their students and secured their 
cooperation. 

Grateful thanks and appreciation are hereby expressed to all of 
these, — Misses Alice Krackowizer, Eleanor Lally, Margaret Taylor, 
Mary Doremus, Helen Reynolds, Mary Waite, Elizabeth Little, 
Fay Laighton, Bertha Wells, Lucy Warburton, Ella Knight, Made- 
leine Veverka, Marie Long, Edith Whiteman, Florence Bamberger, 
and Annie C. Moore, to Dr. Orville Brim, Dr. C. W. Stone, Mr. H. C. 
Pearson, and the principals of Public Schools Nos. lo, 39, 43, 54, 
68, 87, 93, 94, loi, 103, 119, 157, 165, 186 and 192 in New York 
City; and most of all to Dr. Edward Lee Thorndike, who in more 
ways than one is responsible for the initiation of this study, and 
under whose guidance and inspiration it has been carried out. 

Fannie Wyche Dunn 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Page 

I. Statement of the Problem i 

II. Summary of Previous Studies 3 

III. The Constitution of Primary Reading Material 

OF THE Present Day 10 

Table i. Classes of Material in 29 Primary Reading 
Books, Number of Different Titles of Each Class, 
and Number of Recurrences of Each Title .... 11 
Table 2. All Titles Occurring Three or More Times 
in 29 Primary Readers 12 

IV. The Constitution of Primary Reading Material 

in the Past 16 

V. The Method of the Present Study 22 

Table 3. Samples Finally Chosen for Test and Quali- 
ties for Which Samples Were Chosen 23 

Table 4. Distances Between Two Paired Samples, 

Derived from Percentages of Preferences .... 27 
Table 5. Final Values and Ranks of Samples ... 29 
Table 6. Number and Sex of Judges Who Ranked 
Samples for Various Qualities 30 

VI. General Tendencies of Children's Interests . . 35 

Table 7. Crude Coelhcients of Correlation of Interest 
and Interest Factors 38 

Table 8. Crude Correlations and Partial Correla- 
tions of First Order for the Most Significant 
Qualities, Girls 41 

Table 9. Crude Correlations and Partial Correlations 
of the First Order for the Most Significant Qualities, 
Boys 41 

Table 10. Extended Partial Correlations for the Most 
Significant Factors 45 

VII. Variations in Interest and Their Causes .... 51 

VIII. Adult Discernment of Children's Tastes .... 62 

IX. Final Summary and Practical Applications ... 65 



CHAPTER I 
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 

Interest is commonly recognized as a potent, even an essential 
element in human accomplishment, and specifically in human 
learning. Historic educational practices are condemned, which, 
through inflicted penalties and pains, made it to the interest of 
pupils to apply themselves to the lesser evils of books and study. 
Criticism falls also upon the selection of subject matter for instruc- 
tion without consideration of its inherent interest for the learner, 
thus necessitating the use of extraneous motives or incentives. 

In each case the basis of criticism is the wastefulness attendant 
upon divided attention. With the sum of human attainments ever 
mounting, and a commensurate increase in the knowledge and skills 
necessitated by an ever more complex civilization, it becomes 
important to consider economy of time and effort, together with 
excellence of product, in education as in any other modern enter- 
prise. To this end it is essential that education be so organized as 
to utilize existing interests and develop those which are potential, 
thus harnessing the forces of native tendencies and integrating them 
for desirable ends. 

That makers of reading textbooks are alive to the importance of 
interest in the selection of subject matter is evidenced by expressions 
like the following: "The subject matter of this series . . . is full of 
incident and action. It enlists at once the liveliest interest of 
children. . . . "i 

"The reading matter of this volume has been chosen with deference 
to the taste of children as manifested by many generations of de- 
votion to Mother Goose and the folk tales of the nursery. "^ 

"It is believed that the familiarity of many of the selections is a 
guarantee of the child's desire to read them again. "^ 

"This book is based upon the belief that interesting material is the 
most important factor in learning to read; that the keynote of 
interest is the story element, the plot.""* 

' Aldine. Primer, Introduction. 

2 Baker and Carpenter. First Year Language Reader, Preface. 

3 Ibid. 

* Elson-Runkel. Primer, Introduction. 



2 Interest Factors in Primary Reading Material 

"Experience proves that all children are interested in and enjoy 
the simple folk tales."^ 

"In order that the pupil may be animated by the most effective of 
all stimuli, interest, the authors have based their method upon a 
collection of legends and folk tales."^ 

"The child at this stage [third grade] is in the golden age of pure 
fancy. In consequence, stories which appeal to his imagination are 
best suited. . . . However, the world of reality should not be over- 
looked."' 

"While it is not assumed that the third year in school is the only 
year in which children like the fairy tale, it is the year in which they 
can read the greatest amount of fairy lore with pleasure. "^ 

"No doubt the greatest delight of children is found in reading 
what they have previously learned orally."^ 

It is not, however, sufficient to recognize the importance of the 
element of interest in economical and effective education. To know 
what is good to have is of no avail unless one knows also how it may 
be obtained. To what extent are these statements of textbook 
makers matters of knowledge, and to what extent are they no more 
than opinion, with only empirical evidence as basis? Only in so far 
as they are demonstrable or demonstrated fact is it secure to use 
them as criteria in determining the subject matter of the chief or 
only textbooks of primary grades. 

It is to discover such facts that this study has been undertaken. 
It attempts to answer, at least in part, the question: What are the 
elements in primary reading material that are of interest to children 
in the first three grades of the elementary school? 

' Free and Treadwell. Firsl Reader, Preface. 

* Progressive Road to Reading. Book One, Introduction. 

^ Elson. Primary School Reader. Book Three, Introduction. 

' Baker and Carpenter. Third Year Language Reader, Preface. 

' Cox, J. H. Literature in the Common Schools. 



CHAPTER II 
SUMMARY OF PREVIOUS STUDIES 

A search into the literature of the subject reveals that whereas 
within recent years various studies have been made of the reading 
interests of children, none of them has been within the field of the 
primary grades. The investigations of Votrovsky, Wissler, and 
Barnes may be cited as the most noteworthy which approach this 
field. 

Clara Votrovsky^ made "an effort to ascertain in some measure 
the general reading tastes of school children before any organized 
effort has been made to direct it." The study was a local one, car- 
ried on only in the schools of Stockton, California. Children from 
the ages of nine to nineteen were asked the following questions : 

1. a. Do you take books from the Public Library? 
b. If so, how often? 

2. a. What was the name of your last book? 

b. Why did you take it? 

c. How did you like it? 

Answers were received from 604 boys and 665 girls. They showed 
that "juveniles" and "fiction" together comprised 64% of the boys' 
lists and 75% of the girls'. The remainder were distributed among 
history and historical biography, with 15% of boys and 10% of girls; 
literature and literary biography, 4% of boys and 7% of girls; 
travels, 4% of boys and 3% of girls; science, 7% of boys and 2% of 
girls; and miscellaneous, 6% of boys and 3% of girls. In the case of 
the nine year old children, "juveniles" made up 100% of both boys' 
and girls' lists. "Children," says Miss Votrovsky, "evidently con- 
sider the library not as a storehouse for knowledge, but as a store- 
house for stories, and one cannot help but wonder whether children 
who live so largely in the imaginative world are not apt to lose sight 
of the beauties and enjoyments of real life. On the other hand, it 
must be remembered that the story, by broadening the horizon and 
bringing into it new associations, serves as one of the most effective 

' Votrovsky. Clara. "Study of Children's Reading Tastes," Fed. Sent., Vol. 6. 
pp. 523-535- 



4 Interest Factors in Primary Reading Material 

helps to growth (if the stories are well chosen) that is open to 
children." 

Answers to the question, "How was the last book liked?" indicate 
"that the critical faculty is not developed early in life." Of the 90% 
of boys and 88% of girls who answered the question, 80% and 70% 
respectively replied, "Very much." Only 5% of boys and 10% of 
girls responded, "Not at all." "The world is all so new to children, they 
are so eager to gain new experiences, that if a book along the lines in 
which they are interested has only some little mark of merit, it is 
sure to please." This the author finds "encouraging in one sense, for 
if children are so easily pleased it cannot be difficult to direct their 
tastes for what is good." 

Certain indications appeared as to sex differences. Whereas 52% 
of girls say they took a story because it was about children and 
generally about girls, only 12% of boys gave the reason "about 
children" for their selection. Moreover, 71% of the books chosen 
by girls, and only 21% of the books chosen by boys, had names sug- 
gestive of children. Some mentioned by girls were in regard to boys 
alone, but not one given by a boy was merely in regard to girls. 
"Because it was exciting" was given as a reason for choosing a book 
by 24% of girls and 76% of boys. "Boys' tastes in general are well 
illustrated by a boy of 12, who states that he took The Moon- 
hunters because he liked to read about the wilderness of the world ; 
while the following sentiment by a girl of 14 is shared by a large 
number of others, 'I like Quinnehasset Girls because it tells about 
the thoughts and feelings of girls.' " 

Wissler^ studied interests of children in the reading work of the 
elementary schools by means of a questionnaire used in a number of 
Indiana schools. Three questions were asked as follows: 

1. Write the subjects of all the lessons that you remember from 
the Reader you used last year, 

2. Which one did you like best? What was it that you liked? 

3. If you were taken to a book store and told that you might 
select just one book for your own, what would you take? 

Results were obtained from about 2100 children, and used from 
1950, 1060 of whom were girls and 890 boys, of third reader grade 
and above, about 500 children to each reader. Little indication as 

- Wissler, Clark. "Interests of Children in the Reading Work of the Elementary 
Schools," Ped. Sem., Vol. 5, 1895, pp. 523-540. 



Summary of Previous Studies 5 

to interest was obtained from the list of second reader lessons 
recalled by third grade pupils, for only one was not recalled, while 
the twenty-two selections which were recalled by not more than 5% 
were of a rather miscellaneous character. The bulk of them were 
made up, however, of "mere instructive lessons, the moral and its 
setting, and abstract poems concerning duty, happmess, love of 
nature, etc." 

Fourth grade pupils failed to recall a larger per cent of third reader 
lessons, practically all of these being of the same general types as 
those which had failed to impress the pupils of the lower grade. 
Other elements besides content in both grades entered into causes of 
recall, first lessons and continued lessons or long stories being in 
general well remembered. Interest values appeared to inhere in 
lessons especially natural or lifelike, or those "in terms of experience 
a child can realize in himself," both of these types being well recalled. 
Expressions of preference elicited by the second question indicated 
a decided preference for prose over poetry, 86% of the girls and 92% 
of the boys naming a prose selection as the one liked best of all. It 
should be noted that there were only 18 specimens of poetry to 47 
of prose in the book studied. Similar interests revealed themselves 
in the answers of fourth grade children as to their third reader work. 
A marked difference in replies based on fifth reader study, where 
such poems as Evangeline, Thanatopsis, and Snowbound are read, 
leads Wissler to say: "Growth in interest in poetry is co-incident 
with age. . . . It is probable that young children are interested 
only in the rhythm of verse as found in rhymes of the Mother Goose 
type, and that real poetry receives little recognition before the 
adolescent period." As ground for this conclusion as to young chil- 
dren's interest he says: "Poems in the Second and Third Readers are 
chiefly those of sentiment and thought, but the preferences fall upon 
those in which rhythm is promment, as: 

Two little kittens, one stormy night, 
Began to quarrel and then to fight 

[Popular in the Second Reader.] 

and 

Now, such a story I never heard, 
There was a little shivering bird. 

[Popular in the Third Reader.]" 

Stories of daily life and stories of animals lead all others in both 



6 Interest Factors in Primary Reading Material 

second and third readers, animal stories in the second reader being 
preferred by 19% of girls and 21% of boys, and in the third reader 
by 12% of girls and 14% of boys; stories of daily life in the second 
reader preferred by 39% of girls and 41% of boys, in the third reader 
by 28% of girls and 24% of boys. Other classes considered were 
fables, stories of heroism, biography, stories of adventure, informa- 
tion, moral precepts, and description, percentages of preference 
varying among these from 0% of both sexes for adventure in both 
third and fourth grades to 12% of girls and 11% of boys for biog- 
raphy in the third reader. 

The main reason given for preferences was trueness to life, cited 
by 39% of boys and 33% of girls for second reader selections and 
27% of boys and 25% of girls for third reader. Other reasons given 
were classified under the general heads "interesting," "beautiful," 
"information," "moral lessons," and "heroic," moral lessons leading 
all the others with 13% of boys and 13% of girls in the case of 
second reader material, and 17% of boys and 14% of girls in third 
reader selections. 

Of books that children would buy, fiction conspicuously leads, 
being preferred by 74% of fourth grade boys and 66% of fourth 
grade girls, and holding a large percentage throughout the grades. 
Other classes listed are poetry, biography, travel, history, religion, 
science, and humor. Travel is not mentioned by either third or 
fourth grade pupils, humor is named only by i% of the boys in 
either of these grades. Next to fiction stands religion in the third 
grade, with 5% of boys and 8% of girls, and poetry in the fourth 
grade, with 9% of boys and 10% of girls. 

"No marked sex difference appears either in preferences or in 
basis of preferences." However, an examination of the samples of 
fiction throughout the grades indicates that girls prefer "home life 
and every day thought and emotion," while boys like "adventure." 
Sex differences appear to increase with the grades. In general, the 
author concludes that "The literature most appreciated by pupils in 
the elementary schools is that which presents the true, the beautiful, 
the heroic, and the _good in the same concrete way as the busy 
world around them. Fiction and poetry are the preferred forms." 

Although the studies above described are open to question in 
several respects, they represent findings based on a sufficient num- 
ber of cases to lend considerable weight to their percentages. 



Summary of Previous Studies 7 

Barnes' Studies in Education have not always this merit. Note, 
for example, the suggestion, based upon a love story^ written by one 
nine year old girl: "Since the writer is independent, might we infer 
that this sort of story (about a 'delcit,* 'pane-bearing orphan') 
really appeals to a general interest in girls at least." Refernng to this 
and another love story by another nine year old girl, Mr. Barnes 
says, "Both stories deal with idealized circumstances and details far 
removed from the actual life of the writers. Does not this seem to 
indicate that children's stories should not be pure realism?" He 
describes also* the effect of Little Men on one class of children 
between the ages of nine and fifteen, to whom it was read aloud. 
The interests of girls were more sustained throughout the book; 
boys became less interested when chapters about Daisy and Nan 
were read. Boys did not like the pathos of the story, and asked to 
skip it, whereas girls listened as attentively to pathetic as to gayer 
parts. "Judging from this slight study," says Mr. Barnes in con- 
clusion, "it seems safe to say that in the majority of cases a child's 
sympathy is with a child like himself." 

Barnes reports also a study of children's recollections ^ of matter 
read and draws from it conclusions as to their interests in much the 
same manner as Wissler. His cases are much more limited, however, 
being confined to loi papers. He found children the subjects in 
36 cases, animals in 23, and fairies in 15. "Bible stories are separately 
listed; but here again animals are prominent, the favorite being 
Daniel's lion, Jonah's whale, and the memorable procession of 
Noah." This he presents as "one more slight piece of evidence that 
the child lives in a world of children where animals take second place 
and fairies hold their own, but grown people have slight recognition." 

To some extent the studies of Votrovsky, Barnes, and Wissler 
agree in conclusions. Both Wissler and Votrovsky find indications 
of preference for fiction and little inclination toward poetry. Both 
present evidences of a sex difference in regard to books about chil- 
dren, especially about girls. Barnes and Wissler agree that animals 
are the subjects of special interest. 

No one of these studies concerns itself with the first grade and 

' Barnes, Earl. Studies in Education, Two Love Stories Written by Children, Vol. I, 
pp. 24-26. 

* Ibid. How Children Judge Character, pp. 94-97- 
'- Ibid. Study in Reminiscence, pp. 58-61. 



8 Interest Factors in Primary Reading Material 

there is little reliable evidence as to second grade. Miss Votrovsky's 
subjects were children nine years old and above, and hence hardly 
likely to be below third grade advancement. Wissler's conclu- 
sions as to second grade children's likings were derived from third 
grade pupils' recollections of their second grade reading experi- 
ences — a very limited field, and the validity of these conclusions is 
conditioned upon the unproved premise that recall and interest are 
closely correlative. 

In fact, the legitimacy of practically all the conclusions of the 
studies cited is questionable. The "post hoc, ergo propter hoc" 
fallacy, and the probability of partial selection, either or both enter 
into every one. Children's selections of reading matter in Miss 
Votrovsky's study were m part at least determined by the public 
library's collection of books within their reading ability, which 
probably included very little for nine year olds except the "juveniles" 
which 100 per cent of them read. The choice of books to buy, 
expressed in Wissler's returns, certainly was largely influenced by 
the environment of the children studied. Books recommended by 
adults or other children, books seen on shop counters or in store 
windows, in their own or others' homes, or in the school library, and 
books already read by them, comprised the entire field within which 
it was possible for them to choose. That travel was not mentioned 
by third or fourth grades might be entirely due to the absence of 
any book of travels in their environment, or at least of any within 
their reading capacity. The presence of religious books, coupled 
with their prestige derived from adult approval, might as easily 
account for their conspicuous mention under the conditions of the 
study. 

The confusion of one cause of like or dislike with another which 
is intimately bound up with it is probably an even larger source of 
error than partial selection. Wissler's conclusion, for example, that 
it is rhythm which young children like in verse is hardly warranted 
by the two samples which he cites, for their interest might as well or 
better be accounted for by the fact that both are about animals, 
kittens and a bird, or by the further fact that each is a story in 
verse form, and a "story of daily life" at that. The latter would also 
account for the rise in liking for poetry in the fifth grade, where 
story poems like Evangeline and Snowbound are found instead of 
"those of sentiment and thought," "abstract poems concerning duty. 



Summary of Previous Studies 9 

happiness, love of nature, etc.," which make up the main offerings 
of second and third readers. 

Contradictory indications are afforded by the o% of boys and 
girls in third and fourth grade who prefer stories of adventure, and 
by the conclusion reached through analysis of the samples of fiction 
in the same study, that throughout the grades boys prefer adventure 
stories over all others. Either both of these are mere chance results, 
or else a complicating factor or factors influence one or both so as to 
obscure the truth. So many elements enter into the constitution of 
each book or selection that it is unsafe to fix arbitrarily upon any 
one quality as a basis for classification and generalization. 

In view of the limited number of studies in the field of the primary 
grades and the questionable nature of their conclusions, it may be 
said that they afford practically no reliable information on the 
interest elements of primary reading material. 



CHAPTER III 

THE CONSTITUTION OF PRIMARY READING MATERIAL 
OF THE PRESENT DAY^ 

Preliminary to an evaluation of the interest factor in primary 
reading material a knowledge of the nature of that material is essen- 
tial. To afford an index of this there was prepared a complete table 
of contents of the primers and first, second, and third readers of eight 
series in common use to-day .^ One of the series examined had no 
primer, and of two of the others the third reader was not available, 
so that all told the number of books indexed was twenty-nine. 

The total number of selections found in these twenty-nine books 
was 1043; the number of different titles was 749. Table I shows 
the distribution of these titles among different classes of reading 
matter and also among the different books. 

Of the 749 titles, 573 occurred only once, 112 occurred twice, 
35 three times, 15 four times, 7 five times, 4 six times, 2 seven times, 
and I eight times. This one, it may be noted, did not occur in all 
eight series, being found twice in one series. Not a single selection 
appeared in each series. 

It is evident, therefore, that there is as yet no agreement as to 
minimum essentials in reading matter for the primary grades. The 
range of selections with which a pupil becomes acquainted in his 
primary reading depends altogether upon the reading series that 
happen to be adopted in the school system to which he belongs. 
Much more agreement exists as to the classes of reading matter 
than as to the particular samples within each class. Poetry and fic- 
titious stories make up all but 40 of the total 749 titles, and all but 42 
of the 1043 selections, repetitions included. 

1 Since this study was made, reports have been pubHshed by other investigators of 
the contents of school readers, as follows: Woody, C. "The Overlapping in the Content 
of Fifteen Second Readers," Journal of Educational Research, II, 1920, 465-474; and 
Starch, Daniel, "The Contents of Readers," The Twentieth Yearbook of the National 
Society for the Study of Education, Part II, 1921, 145-151. 

2 Aldine Readers, Baker and Carpenter's Language Readers, Elson, Primary Readers, 
Free and Treadwell's Reading Literature Series, Progressive Road to Reading, the 
Riverside Readers, Summer's Readers, and Young and Field Readers. 



Primary Reading Material of the Present Day 1 1 

TABLE I 

Showing the Classes of Material in 29 Primary Reading Books, the 

Number of Different Titles of Each Class, and the 

Number of Recurrences of the Same Title 



Classes of Material 


Different 
Titles 


Frequences 


Total 


I 2345678 


Selections 


Aesop and Other Fables 
Bible Stories 

Biographical and Historical 
Geographical 
Observations of Bird and 

Animal Life 
Folk and Fairy Tales 
Legend and Myth 
Miscellaneous Stories 
Miscellaneous Poems 
Mother Goose 
Rossetti's Poems 
Stevenson's Poems 


45 
3 

30 
5 

2 

153 
24 

113 
251 
70 
27 
26 


22 

2 

29 

5 

2 

III 

19 

108 

206 

37 

20 

12 


13 

I 
I 

28 
4 
3 
28 
24 
4 
6 


5 

4 


12 
6 

I 
6 


3 

5 

I 
I 
3 



I 


I 
7 


I 



4 


I 
I 
2 


I 


86 

4 

31 

5 

2 
230 

31 
121 
321 
119 
42 
51 


Grand Total 


749 


573 


112 


35 


15 


I 


1043 



Poetry, which constitutes 51% of all selections, has been subdi- 
vided in this tabulation, into Mother Goose rhymes, poems by 
Rossetti, poems by Stevenson, and miscellaneous poems. Of the 
last named there are 251 samples, of which 206 occur only once and 
only 5 occur more than three times in the eight series. Rossetti is 
represented by 2"] different poems, 20 of which are not repeated, and 
only 3 are found more than twice. There are 26 titles from Steven- 
son's Child Garden of Verses, with a slightly larger percentage of 
repetitions, 12 occurring once, 6 twice, 6 three times. Of Mother 
Goose there are 70 different rhymes, only 3 of which are included in 
more than three of the series. 

Of fictitious stories 335 different titles appear, making up with 
their repetitions 45% of the total number of selections. Folk and 
fairy tales furnish 153 different specimens, Aesop and other fables 
45, legend and myth 24, and miscellaneous stories make up the re- 
maining 113. Some of the miscellaneous stories might be included 
under the other categories, especially under folk and fairy tales, but 



12 Interest Factors in Primary Reading Material 

they were classified otherwise because it was not quite certain to 
which group they did belong. As with poetry, there is here little 
repetition, only five of all the miscellaneous stories and the same 
number of legends and myths being found more than once. Among 
Aesop's fables and the folk and fairy tales there is a greater degree of 
repetition, but the number of occurrences does not average two to 
a title. 

The amount of matter intended for belief is almost negligible. 
Three Bible stories are found, one of them in two series. There are 
30 titles from historical or biographical matter, of which only one 
occurs twice. All told there are two selections which may be classed 
as observations of bird or animal life, and 5 titles in the field of 
geography. None of these are repeated. 

It should be noted that this description of contents omits mate- 
rial made up for purposes of teaching the rudiments of reading. 
The amount of such material in the primers of the series examined 
varies from 0% in one series to 97.6% in another. This "made 
material" does not admit of classification under any of the categories 
employed and of course it differs with every series. 

The grade in which a selection is used is another matter in which 
there is no apparent standard. Table II, including all the titles in 
the eight series which occur three times or more, indicates the 
extent of divergence in this respect. 

TABLE II 

Showing All Titles which Occurred Three Times or More in 29 Primary 

Readers of Eight Series, with the Readers in which 

They were Found 

Selection and Class Readers in which FoiincI 

Aesop or Other Fables: 

Belling the Cat 2, 2, i 

The Wind and the Sun 2, i, 2 

The Ant and the Dove 1,1,2 

The Boy Who Cried Wolf 3, 2, i 

The Dog and His Shadow 2, i, 2 

The Fox and the Crow 2, 3, i, 2 

The Hare and the Tortoise 2, i, 2, i 

The Tortoise Who Liked to Talk 3, 3, 2, i 

The Lion and the Mouse P*, 3, 2, i, 2 

The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse P, 3, i, i, i, 2 

*P = primer. 



Primary Reading Material of the Present Day 13 

Bible Stories: 

No sample occurring three times. 

Biographical and Historical Selections 
No samples occurring three times. 

Folk and Fairy Tales 

Hans in Luck 2, 2, 3 

The Little Fir Tree 2, P, 3 

The Twelve Months 2, 3, 3 

The Elves and the Shoemaker 2, 2, 3, 2 

Boots and His Brothers 2, 3, 2, i 

The Three Billy Goats Gruff i, i, P, 2 

The Bremen Band 2, i, 2, 2 

Chicken Little i, P, I, i, 

The Little Pine Tree 2, i, 2, i, 2 

Sleeping Beauty 3. 3. 2, 3, 2 

The Three Pigs P, 2, i, i, 2, i 

The Little Red Hen i, i, P, i, i, P, i 

The Gingerbread Boy 3, P, i, P, i, 2, i, i 

Geographic Selections 

No samples occurring three times 

Legend and Myth 

Ulysses and the Bag of Winds 2, 3, 2, 2 

Miscellaneous Poems 

Fairy Folk, Allingham 3. 3. 2 

The Bluebird, E. H. Miller 2, 2, 3 

Sweet and Low 2, 3, i 

America 2, i, 2 

Do You Ask What the Birds Say? 3, 3. 3 

Goodby to Summer 3, 3. 3 

Baby Seed Song 3, 3i 3 

Thanksgiving Day, Child 2, 2, 3 

Rollicking Robin, Larcom 3. 3, 2 

The Moon, Fallen i, 2, i 

Thank You, Pretty Cow, Taylor 2, P, 2 

Lady Moon, Houghton 2, 2, P 

The Lost Doll, Kingsley 2, 2, 2, 3 

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star 2, 2, 2, I 

Daisies, Sherman 3, 2, P, 2 

What Does Little Birdie Say? i, 3, i, i, i 

Sleep, Baby Sleep 2, i, 2, i, 2, 2 

Miscellaneous Stories 

The Brave Tin Soldier 3. 2, 3 

The Ugly Duckling 3, 3i i, 3 



14 Interest Factors in Primary Reading Material 

Mother Goose Rhymes 

See Saw i, P. P 

Pat-a-cake ii i, P 

Little Jack Horner i, i. P 

Baa, Baa, Black Sheep P, i, i 

Pussy Cat i, 2, i 

Blow, Wind, Blow P, i, P 

Little Bopeep 2, i, P, P, 

Hushaby, Baby i, i, i, i, P 

Little Boy Blue P, i, P, i, i, P, P 

Observations of Bird and Animal Life 
No samples occurring three times 

Rossetti's Poems 

Boats Sail on the Rivers 2, 2, 2 

Sun Loving Swallow 3, 2, i, 2, 2 

The Wind 2, 3, 2, 2, 2, i 

Stevenson's Poems 

The Wind 2, 3, 2 

At the Seaside 2, i, 2 

The Rain is Raining 2, P, 2 

Singing 2, 2, 3 

Farewell to the Farm 3. 2, 3 

My Shadow 2, 2, 3 

Where Go the Boats 3, 2, 3, 2 

The Swing i, 2, P, i, I 

The variations in content and gradation indicated in the preced- 
ing pages are quite at odds with a statement as to reading curricula 
made by Professor Hosic in 1915:^ "For almost a generation a 
sifting process has been going on which seems to have resulted to a 
remarkable degree in unanimity of choice of literature for the ele- 
mentary school and even of uniformity of grading." 

This statement was based largely on the results of a study by 
Bobbitt and others with the purpose of answering the question, 
"In what school grade should any given piece of literature be read?" 
The authors answered their question thus, "Obviously it ought to 
be in that grade where, as shown by practical experience, it works 
best." They hoped from examination of the courses of study in 
use in various states and cities to find where a given selection has 

1 Hosic, J. F. "The Essentials of Literature," Fourteenth Yearbook, N. S. S. E., 1915, 
Part I, pp. i47ff- 



Primary Reading Material of the Present Day 1 5 

tended to gravitate as the result of a process of experimentation 
which they considered country wide. General present practice in 
curriculum making hardly warrants their assumption. The "re- 
markable degree of unanimity" which their results indicated may at 
least as probably be the outcome of the easy process of imitation as 
of the difficult one of experimentation. Skillful advertising, institute 
work, and the limited amount of material available in form for class 
room use, all might account for a uniformity in the material listed in 
curricula, even if it were very far from being the best selection or 
the best gradation. 

Hosic's conclusions from a later study- of reading texts are, 
however, absolutely in accord with the results of the investigation 
of primary reading content described above. Hosic reports the 
indexing of 22 complete series of readers, discovering approximate- 
ly 4000 titles of which 2500 were named but once. No selection 
appears more than 19 times; 56 titles out of the 4000 appeared 
10 times or more. "Only a dozen are included in two thirds or more 
of the readers indexed." 57 authors (or sources) are represented by 
10 or more titles, Longfellow leading with 91, Stevenson and Shake- 
speare following with 72 and 69 respectively. Professor Hosic there- 
fore concludes: "The most striking fact which this index presents is 
the lack of consensus of opinion as to what American children should 
read in school. The majority of the pieces which the editors of the 
22 sets of readers have chosen appear but once. The effort 
has apparently been to get something 'different.' Yet these are 
basal, not supplementary readers. No educational principle of inclu- 
sion or exclusion can be traced which is in any sense common to as 
many as half the series. 

"There is no clear consensus even as to the difficulty which the 
various selections may be supposed to present to the pupils. No 
piece mentioned five or more times is placed always in the same 
school-year or grade. The common range in such cases is four or 
more grades, and some pieces are placed in seven of the eight school 
years. . . . 

"American educators apparently have at present no well-defined 
policy as to the content of school reading books." 



- Hosic, J. F. "The Contents of School Reading Books," School and Society, V'ol. XI. 
No. 267, Feb. 7, 1920, pp. 179, 180. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE CONSTITUTION OF PRIMARY READING MATERIAL 
IN THE PAST 

If the content of primary readers to-day is not the result of a long 
continued sifting process, still less is it a matter of tradition fixed 
like so much of our school curriculum by historic precedent. Indeed, 
it is apparently but a stage in a development of over a century, dur- 
ing which the pendulum has swung to one extreme or another 
according to the trend of popular interest or pedagogical thought. 
Dissatisfaction with existing conditions has led to opinions as to 
means for betterment and the most ardently supported opinion 
has for a time at least gained ascendancy over all opponents. 

The following brief survey of some of the tendencies which have 
been promment durmg the past century has been summarized from 
Reeder's The Historical Development of School Readers} Pierpont's 
series, the most important American series in the decade 1 820-1 830, 
was compiled upon the basis of literature as the proper field for 
subject matter. The writings of Patrick Henry, Webster, Everett, 
Irving, Bryant, and other American authors were freely drawn upon 
for material, the series being strongly American. Cobbs' Juvenile 
Readers, on the other hand, published in 1831, the first carefully 
graded series produced in America, aimed more at instruction and the 
immediate interests of the child than at literature and literary 
standards. In general, "early in the 19th century, piety, morality, 
patriotism, and literature form the staple of school readers." In 1824 
there was published an Agricultural Reader which included in its 
scope "fundamental principles of agriculture, examples of good and 
bad husbandry, domestic economy, industry, neatness, order, tem- 
perance, and frugality." In 1827 a Historical Reader appeared. 
The McGuffey series published in 1850, "sw^ept almost the entire 
field of human interest — morals, economics, politics, literature, 
history, science, and philosophy." In i860 appeared the Willson 
series, whose characteristic feature was the information they 
furnished along all lines of science. 

"It became strikingly apparent to students of the curriculum that 

' op. ciL, pp. 53-58. 



Primary Reading Material of the Past 1 7 

some determining principle of selection must be found to rescue this 
branch from the hopeless chaos toward which it was drifting. What 
should be the central core of a reading book series? . . . The 
Willson series showed the absurd limit to which the utilitarian 
principle might lead and the necessity for finding the true center for 
this branch of the curriculum. In the struggle for central position 
literature gradually emerged from the conflict triumphant over those 
subjects which are confined within the limits of time and space. In 
the new series and supplementary readers which began to appear 
about 1883 literature took the field and has since held it against all 
comers." 

Reeder's study is concerned with the development of readers in 
general. I have supplemented it for purposes of my own problem 
with an investigation into the contents of the primary books of a 
number of series published during the past century. Roughly, the 
books examined may be grouped in four chronological periods, (i) 
between 1824 and 1867, (2) between 1868 and 1887,(3) between 1888 
and 1905, and (4) from 1905 to the present. These groupings have 
been made on the basis of the fact that the books within the limits 
set for any one group are more like each other than like those pub- 
lished before or after. 

Twenty books were examined for the period from 1824 to 1867. 
At the beginning of all the primers the first sentences were made up 
of words of two or three letters, increasing to four or more letters, 
and then to multisyllabic words. Typical sentences are: "My son, 
do no ill. Go not in the way of bad men. Bad men go to the pit." 
"On we go. So do we. By me no. So at me. Go to it. Do as we do." 
"Is my ox to go in to it? Oh, no, it is I to go up." "Vain persons are 
full of the allurements of dress." "The philosophical infidel can never 
refer to him for authority." (The last three sentences are from the 
same book, appearing respectively on pages 26, 27 and 36.) 

As soon as the subject matter of books of this period has any 
content at all it is in general moral stories, fables, and verse; devo- 
tional selections, either Bible quotations or stories, or such inspiring 
subjects as The Funeral of a Little Boy, The Dying, Christian to His 
Soul, and On the Shortness of Human Life; or informational matter, 
usually on geographical and zoological topics. Occasionally material 
is found which is in use to-day. Examples of this are The Discon- 
tented Pendulum, The Modest Violet, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, 



1 8 Interest Factors in Primary Reading Material 

The Rat with the Bell, Little Drops of Water, The Boy at the Dike, 
Marys Little Lamb, and a number of Mother Goose Rhymes. 

Considerable information as to what textbook makers of this 
period think a primary reading book should be, may be found in the 
prefaces or introductions to their books, which contain numerous 
expressions of protest against existing conditions and suggestions 
for reform. Premature and indiscriminate scripture reading is 
criticised as resulting in mere word reading without thought, and an 
appeal is made for more interesting subject matter for children 
under lo or 12 than Cicero, Lord Chatham, or "the lyric ode and 
plaintive elegy." One book registers a protest against fragments of 
words for children to read, when as a matter of fact they are 
"delighted with ideas." Another objects to the requirement that a 
child before beginning to read learn to spell four or five thousand 
words "scraped together as they commonly are, without regard to 
his understanding or his needs." Yet another avows its purpose to 
choose lessons adapted in language and matter to the children's 
capacities, and to select those suited to excite curiosity, afford harm- 
less and rational entertainment, and to give variety, while at the 
same time imparting some valuable information or giving some 
useful moral lesson. The idea of variety is carried to a startling 
extreme by one author, who claims to have taken care to avoid 
repetition on the ground that it produces inattention in the learner, 
attention being enforced by mastering each word, once for all, as it 
appears. 

Almost all these expressions indicate that to a considerable extent 
then, as now, the interests of children were in the mind of the text- 
book author. That the books are not interesting seems to be due to 
lack of knowledge of what is of interest to children rather than to a 
misconception of the importance of interest. 

The period from 1868 to 1887 appears to be one of transition in 
both method and content. The content alone, however, will be dis- 
cussed here. In most of the ten series of this period which were 
examined, the large part of the books consists of made up sentences 
or stories about topics assumed to be of interest to children, with 
some made up verse in the second and third readers. Some good 
verse is found in about half the books examined. Next in amount 
to the made up matter stand informational and moralizing selec- 
tions. Classics are found in four books. Each of the following types 



Primary Readhig Material of the Past 19 

of material occurs in at least one of the books examined : child poems; 
stones of child life and activities; information about common things, 
such as plants, animals, stars; information about industries; lives 
of other peoples; biographical or historical anecdotes; Bible stories 
and verses; Aesop fables; Greek myths; Mother Goose; fairy and 
folk tales; proverbs and wise sayings; and stories suggesting things 
children can make. Here is evidently a very much wider range 
than that described in the preceding chapter as characteristic of 
present-day readers. 

In the next period, from 1888 to 1905, for which ten representative 
series were examined, there is a decidedly greater emphasis on 
literary content. It was in the middle of this period that the Heart 
of Oak series appeared, and two other series which indicate the 
approved emphasis by their titles. Stepping Stones to Literature 
and Graded Literature Readers. The primers and first readers of 
this period are still largely composed of made up sentences designed 
to produce word mastery. This intent is avowed by one book: "No 
part of the purpose of this early work in reading is to train the 
child to get thought from the printed page." There is, however, a 
decrease in the percentage of made up matter in the primary books 
as a whole and especially of made up verse, of which there is prac- 
tically none. There is a large increase in the number of child poems, 
good ones being found in about 50% of the books examined, though 
a few books have no verse at all. Classics, including myth, legend, 
fairy and folk tales, and fable, are also much more used than in pre- 
ceding periods, constituting a very large part of about 25% of the 
books, and occurring in small amount in about an additional 12%. 
There is a striking decline in the number of moralizing selections, 
almost none being found. Informational matter is also much 
decreased in amount, excepting that one of the ten series has a good 
deal, especially biographies of American authors. 

Of the last period, from 1905 to the present, for which eight series 
were examined in detail, the content has already been described in 
Chapter III. Practically all of it is "literary" in the sense which that 
term seems to have attained. That is, it is poetry or fictitious story, 
the latter preferably folk or classic in origin, and in only a negligible 
number of cases does it violate accepted canons by introducing any 
matter intended for serious belief in the lines of history, biography, 
geography, or natural science. 



20 Interest Factors in Primary Reading Material 

Primary readers of the present day are built, it appears, in 
accordance with their authors' interpretation of two generally 
accepted principles, — they must be interesting to children and 
they must be literature. These principles as it were coordinate 
and focus together like a pair of eyes upon two classes of material, 
poetry and story. That what is of interest to children of this age 
has never been demonstrated is claimed in a preceding chapter. 
That no justifiable criterion of literary merit has been set up in 
making these selections is asserted here. The folk lore of every 
known land, Japan, Russia, Germany, France, Ireland, England, 
China, and others is combed for new selections. The lack of agree- 
ment in reader contents indicates that these new comers in many 
cases displace old material of the same class, with no justification 
based on a comparison of literary merits. The language in which 
each story is told is not that of the literary artist who created it, but 
is the compiler's, conditioned, in many cases, by the small vocabu- 
lary of the pupils for whose reading it is designed. 

Just wherein is this "literature"? What is literature? And if, as 
Reeder asserts, "all the leading series to-day are compiled on the 
basis of literature as the central subject and the controlling prin- 
ciple of selection," should there not be some body of selections, 
chosen because of their literary merit together with their suit- 
ability for the appreciation of primary pupils, which appear in every 
school and form the core and major portion of any series of readers 
that claims to be basal? Finally, is the practice of making literature 
the controlling principle of selection in a reading course justifiable? 

These questions it is not my purpose to attempt to answer. But 
to some extent the question of interest is bound up with current 
ideas on them all, so far as the content of primary reading is con- 
cerned. Loose thinking follows some such line as the following: 
Literature is desirable. Interesting material is desirable. Therefore 
literature is interesting. Or this: Children like to read fairy tales. 
Fairy tales are not facts. Therefore children do not like to read facts. 
Careful thinking is concerned with the questions: What reading 
needs will come to children sooner or later? How may present read- 
ing interests contribute to meeting these needs? What reading 
interests is it desirable that children possess now or hereafter? How 
may these interests be developed from the interests they now have? 
Are all the desirable interests which now exist being nurtured and 



Primary Reading Material of the Past 2 1 j 

developed, or are they being starved and displaced? Knowledge as 
to the actual interests of primary children is essential both to correct 
the loose and to aid the careful thinker. 

For at least a hundred years ''n America textbook makers have 
endeavored to utilize children's interests in teaching them to read. > 

But to-day, as a century ago, it is still true that their knowledge as j 

to what is of interest is uncertain or only empirically derived. This j 

condition will not continue to prevail. The increasing perfection of \ 

methods of psychological investigation, and especially the develop- 
ment of statistical means, will in time give us as exact scientific 
information on this and other matters of human nature and char- 1 

acter as are now available in the field of the natural sciences. ' 



CHAPTER V 
THE METHOD OF THE PRESENT STUDY 

The present study attemps to apply exact methods to the de- 
termination of the elements in primary reading material that arouse 
the interest of children in the first three grades, by means of reading 
to children in these grades pairs of selections from primary books, 
securing their written votes as to their preference, and analyzing 
the results with the aid of recognized statistical methods. 

SELECTION OF MATERIAL 

A preliminary selection was made of 243 samples of primary 
reading material including 73 samples of verse, 63 of factual prose, 
and 107 of fictional prose. These were chosen from nearly forty 
different books of primary grade for their presumably high interest 
quality. 

These samplings were submitted to eight women judges, seven 
of whom are expert primary teachers and the eighth a specialist 
in abnormal psychology, and all of whom were college students, 
five graduate, three undergraduate. They were asked to classify 
each type of material, poetry, fiction, and fact, making ten groups 
of each, graduated from samples of the least to the greatest interest, 
in their opinion, for children of the first three grades. 

On a basis of their composite judgments there were chosen for 
actual testing with children 31 samples which in general ranked 
high for expected interest and also represented a wide range of 
elemental qualities whose interest value it was desired to test. Where 
a specimen ranked low by the adult judges was included, it was 
because no better sample of its kind was available. Table HI lists 
the thirty-one samples, gives the median value of each derived 
from the judges' rankings, and indicates the elemental qualities for 
which it was chosen.* It was recognized that so far as adults are 
able to judge of children's interests the factual material was inferior 
to both the poetry and fiction included, but no better samples of 
that type were available. 

' For the benefit of any who may desire to examine the exact editions used, abibhog- 
raphy indicating the source of each sample appears at the end of this chapter. 



The Method of the Present Study 



23 



TABLE III 

Samples Finally Chosen for Test and Qualities for which 
Samples were Chosen 









Median 


Sample 


Title 


Key 


Value 


No. 


Word 


Adults' 








Judgments 


I 


How the Horses of the Sun Ran Away 


Sun 


5 


2 


Proserpina 


Pros 


4 


3 


Bessie Brandon's Guest 


Bess 


3 


4 


King Alfred and the Cakes 


King 


3 


5 


Candle Making at the Coolidges' 


Candle 


2.5 


6 


A Chinese School 


School 


4 


7 


Boys and Girls of Holland 


Hoi 


4-5 


8 


The Pygmies 


Pyg 


4 


9 


East of the Sun and West of the Moon 


East 


I 


10 


Boots and His Brothers 


Boots 


3 


II 


One Eye, Two Eyes, and Three Eyes 


One Eye 


1-5 


12 


The Queen Bee 


Bee 


3 


13 


The Honest Woodcutter 


Honest 


3 


14 


The Lion and the Mouse 


Lion 


3 


15 


The Miller, His Son, and Their Donkey 


Miller 


3 


16 


A Story of Washington's Boyhood 


Colt 


3-5 


17 


Dumpy the Pony 


Dumpy 


2.5 


18 


Fiddle Diddle Dee 


Fiddle 


2.5 


19 


Daisies, Sherman 


Daisies 


1.5 


20 


The Swing, Stevenson 


Swing 


I 


21 


One, Two, Three, Bunner 


1,2,3 


2.5 


22 


The Water Dolly 


Dolly 


6 


23 


Epaminondas 


Epam 


I 


24 


The Husband Who Kept House 


Man 


2 


25 


The Three Wishes 


Wish 


2 


26 


The Three Billy Goats Gruff 


Gruff 


I 


27 


The Johnny Cake 


Cake 


1-5 


28 


The Wolf and the Seven Kids 


Kids 


1-5 


29 


The Old Woman and Her Pig 


Pig 




30 


Mother Hubbard and Her Dog 


Dog 


1-5 


31 


The Jumblies, Lear 


Jumb 


3 



Qualities for Which Chosen and Numbers of Samples Embodying 
Each Quality 

Child Characters. Samples i, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23. 
Adult Characters. Samples 4, 8, 9, 12, 13, 15, 24, 25, 29, 30. 
Boy the Central Figure. Samples i, 10, 16, 17, 18, 23. 



24 Interest Factors in Primary Reading Material 

Girl the Central Figure. Samples 2, 3, 9, 11, 22. 

Realistic (What could happen here to-day). Samples 15, 16, 20, 21, 22, 22,, 24. 

Historical (Occurrence dependent on past condition). Samples 3, 4, 5, 16. 

Geographical (Occurrence limited to certain lands). Samples 6, 7, 8. 

Fairy Stories (Folk tales with some supernatural agent). Samples 9, 10, 11, 12, 

25, 26. 
Myth (Stories derived from the old mythology). Samples i, 2. 
Folk Material (Only that with no supernatural agent classified under this head). 

Samples 26, 27, 28, 29, 30. 
Fables. Samples 13, 14, 15. 
Fanciful (Modern material not realistic in character). Samples 17, 18, 19, 31, 



These thirty-one samples were arranged in a numbered order 
according to certain quahties of likeness and difference existing 
between sequential specimens. It was designed that i and 2, 2 and 3, 
3 and 4, and so on to 30 and 31 should be paired in reading to the 
children. In reading i and 2, How the Horses of the Sun Ran Away 
and Proserpina, a mythical story about a boy and a story of similar 
origin about a girl would be compared. When 2 was paired with 3, 
Bessie Brandon s Guest, a girl was the central character in each, 
but one story was mythical and the other assumed to be historical. 
Samples 23 and 24 were both humorous, but one told a funny story 
about a child and the other about a man and his wife. Numbers 24 
and 25 were both funny stories about grown people, but one had 
a fairy element while the other was possible in a world of every day 
people. Sample 19, Daisies, Sample 20, The Swing, and Sample 21, 
One, Two, Three, were all verse, but the first was fanciful and 
meditative, the second realistic and meditative, the third realistic 
and narrative. 

GIVING THE TESTS 

In general, one-half hour was spent in each class room, during 
which two pairs of samples were read. In a few schools, all the 
samples were read, using half an hour a day for about two weeks. 
The reader began by giving the name of the story, and writing on 
the board some short significant part of the title to stand for it. The 
abbreviations thus used, which were constant for all the tests, are 
shown in Table III, under the heading Keyword. After reading one 
sample, the other member of its pair was similarly presented, i.e. 
its title was given, its keyword written on the board, and the selec- 
tion was read. The pupils were then asked to write on a printed vote 



The Method of the Present Study 25 

slip, which is shown below, their names and the keyword for the 
sample which was their preference. 



The second pair of samples was similarly presented and voted upon, 
the keyword being written immediately after that of the first 
preference. In the case of first grade children, frequently only 
the first letter of the keyword was employed in voting, because 
of the inability of many i Aclasses to write. In spite of this difficulty, 
however, their votes are believed to record their true preferences, 
since the accuracy of their written expression was again and again 
verified by passing rapidly around the class and having the children 
whisper the one they liked best. 

The reader did not stop to comment upon or explain any point, 
and, as far as possible, comments or interruptions by pupils were 
stopped by a glance or a gesture. However, since it was felt desirable 
to keep the atmosphere of the class easy and natural, checking these 
irregularities was not carried so far as to repress interest and enthusi- 
asm for the stories. Where they were unavoidable, a record of them 
was kept, and this record has been taken into consideration in using 
the data of the tests. 

In addition to the 30 pairs originally planned, 10 others were 
made, numbers i and 5, i and 16, 3 and 9, 3 and 10, 10 and 13, 
16 and 24, 21 and 31, 22 and 27, 23 and 27, and 23 and 29. Each of 
the forty pairs was read to and voted on by approximately twelve 
classes. Altogether 195 different classes were tested of which 175 
were in New York City in 16 schools located in widely varying sec- 
tions, and 20 were distributed among a Virginia city of about 
25,000 inhabitants, a Virginia town of 3,000, an Arkansas town of 
4,500, a Missouri town of 4,700, and a California city of 320,000. 
The Virginia, Arkansas, and Missouri classes, and the classes of one 
New York school were tested with all of the material, but the Los 
Angeles and the remaining New York classes in general voted on no 



26 Interest Factors in Primary Reading Material 

more than two pairs each. In all, 60 1 class-pair votes were obtained, 
the term class-pair vote being used to mean the vote of a single class 
on a single pair. About 17,000 individual votes were secured, the 
median number for any one pair being 412. 

A very wide range of child types was included in the schools 
tested. There were Italians, Hebrews, negroes, and all the other 
elements in New York's melting pot; there were the children of 
college professors and of Second Avenue; the southern towns and 
city afforded a native American stock with but little foreign admix- 
ture; and the California city furnished a large proportion of Spanish 
nationality. 

Early in the tests it became evident that a position error was 
present. The children strongly tended to vote for the second mem- 
ber of a pair. This was remedied by reading each pair as many 
times in reverse as in natural order. So strong was this tendency 
that in only six of the forty pairs was the average percentage of 
preferences greater for a sample when it was the first than when 
it was the second of the pair. 

USE MADE OF RESULTS OF TESTS 

The votes of each class were turned into percentages of preference. 
The class vote was thus made the unit rather than the individual 
vote, because of the fact that human beings in groups tend to yield 
some of their individuality and become merged into the social 
whole. The group is the true unit. These percentages were in turn 
transmuted into amounts of difference in terms of the P.E., accord- 
ing to the so-called "method of right and wrong cases." Table IV 
shows the positive or negative distances between the paired samples 
as derived from the percentages of preferences. 

It became necessary here to make the assumption that the dis- 
tance from I to 3 IS the sum of the distances from i to 2 and from 
2 to 3, and similarly that the distance between any two non-paired 
samples is the sum of all the distances between them. It has been 
noted that not only were sequential samples such as 1-2, 6-7, 13-14, 
paired in thirty cases, but non-sequential samples as 1-16, 3-10, 
21-31, were paired in ten cases. Thus certain distances were 
derivable both from immediate comparisons and from a summation 
of several intervening pairs. The distance from i to 5, for example, 
was obtainable both from the paired comparison of i with 5, and 



The Method of the Present Study 

TABLE IV 

Distances Between Two Paired Samples 
Derived from Percentages of Preferences 



27 



From 
From 
From 
From 
From 
From 
From 
From 
From 



1 to 

2 to 

3 to 

4 to 

5 to 

6 to 

7 to 

8 to 

9 to 10 
From ID to 11 
From II to 12 
From 12 to 13 
From 13 to 14 
From 14 to 15 
From 15 to 16 
From 16 to 17 
From 17 to 18 
From 18 to 19 
From 19 to 20 
From 20 to 2 1 
From 21 to 22 
From 22 to 23 
From 23 to 24 
From 24 to 25 
From 25 to 26 
From 26 to 27 
From 27 to 28 
From 28 to 29 
From 29 to 30 
From 30 to 31 



Boys 

- .6104 
.7864 

- 7924 

- .2632 

- .1384 

- .0625 
.796 
•548 
.114 
.0448 

- .22 
•34 

■ -8392 
.208 

1. 4148 

- .4808 

- .4676 
■1.80 

■ 19 

I. 1928 

■ .0712 
I -0335 

• 30 

■ .7864 
.004 
•5932 
•3917 
.6985 
•3869 
.6212 



Girls 
.4632 
.3899 
-2.2812 
.29 
.0032 

•33 

- .09 
i^3582 

- -5012 

- •ris 

- -2776 

- -9845 

.256 
1.464 

- .0676 

- -1364 
-1. 1508 

- -392 
1. 1946 

.8256 
.07 

- .1208 

- .8428 

- ^3568 
.8404 
•4152 

•1-3875 

.5624 

■ -7872 



From I 
From I 
From 3 
From 3 
From 10 
From 16 
From 21 
From 22 
From 23 
From 23 



to 5 
to 16 
to 9 
to 10 
to 13 
to 24 
to 31 
to 27 
to 27 
to 29 



1-3875 

•3959 

•29 

•2536 

.0732 

.8292 

.6656 

•4376 

.07 

.3368 



.80 

•5924 

.0764 

•7275 

.205 

.205 

.0499 

.0992 

.1832 

.81 



28 Interest Factors in Primary Reading Material 

from the sum of the distances derived from the paired comparisons 
of I and 2, 2 and 3, 3 and 4, and 4 and 5. Moreover, the distance of 
an intermediate sample might be measured from either of two 
extremes. Thus 7 might be measured from 9 by adding the distances 
7 to 8 and 8 to 9, or from 5 by adding the distances 5 to 6 and 
6 to 7. The distance values obtained in these several ways have 
been combined and averaged in order to decrease the amount of 
error. First the values of samples i, 3, 5, 9, 10, 13, 16, and 24 were 
determined, after arbitrarily assigning to sample i the value o, and 
then the values of the intermediate samples were found by their 
distances from these points. Table V shows the final values and ranks 
of the thirty-one samples as thus derived. 

The reliability of these ranks has been determined by deriving 
similar ranks for the first half and the second half of the boys' and 
girls' percentages of preference respectively, and correlating- the 
ranks of the two halves. The r, first half with second half, is .72 for 
boys and .637 for girls. The reliability coefficient, therefore, by the 

formula' r „ = — , is .837 for boys and .778 for girls. 

I + {n-\)rx 

That is to say, the ranks derived from all the measures would prob- 
ably correlate to this extent with ranks similarly derived from 
another set of an equal number of measures. This means that on 
the average each sample as ranked here is probably removed from 
the ranks that would be derived from another such set of measures 
4.4 places in the case of girls' preferences and 3.8 places in the case 
of boys'. 

The final task of the study is the determination of the elemental 
qualities or characteristics which account for the greater interest in 
one sample over another. To this end certain qualities were selected 
as those which it seemed probable would enter into the determina- 
tion of interest. Certain of these qualities were indicated in the 
opinions of textbook makers cited in the opening section. Such for 
example are liveliness (or action), plot, and fancifulness. Others, 
suggested by the conclusions of Votrovsky, Barnes, and Wissler, 

■^ The correlating formula used here and throughout the study is the so-called 

Spearman foot-rule, R = 

W2 — I 

' See Brown, Mental Measurements, pp. 101-102. 



The Method of the Present Study 



29 



TABLE V 
Final Values and Ranks of Samples 

Derived by a Combination of Results from Reading Sequentially Numbered Sample 



as 


a Pair with Those Obtained from 


Reading Non-seguentially Nam 


he red 


Sample 


Value 


Rank 


No. 


Key Word 


Boys 


Girls 


Boys 


Girls 


I 


Sun 








7 


18.5 


2 


Pros 


- .6 


• 5 


17-5 


12 


3 


Bess 


.2 


•9 


2.5 


4 


4 


King 


- -7 


-1-3 


20.5 


31 


5 


Candles 


— I.I 


— 1.0 


25.5 


29 


6 


School 


-1-3 


- -9 


28 


27 -.S 


7 


Hoi 


-1.4 


- .6 


29 


23-5 


8 


Pyg 


- .6 


- .6 


17.5 


23-5 


9 


East 


— .1 


.8 


9-5 


6 


10 


Boots 


.0 


.1 


7 


I5-.5 


II 


One Eye 


.0 


1.2 


7 


1-5 


12 


Bee 


— .2 


•4 


1 1 -5 


13-5 


13 


Honest 


.1 


.1 


4-5 


15.5 


14 


Lion 


- .8 


- .9 


22 


27-5 


15 


Miller 


^T 


- -7 


20.5 


25-5 


16 


Colt 


.6 


.7 


I 


8.5 


17 


Dumpy 


.2 


.6 


2.5 


10.5 


18 


Fiddle 


- -3 


•4 


13 


13-5 


19 


Daisies 


— 2.0 


- -7 


30 


25-5 


20 


Swing 


— 2.2 


— 1.2 


31 


30 


21 


1,2,3 


- -9 


— .0 


2?> 


18.5 


22 


Dolly 


-i.o 


.8 


24 


6 


23 


Epam 


- .2 


1.0 


1 1 -5 


3 


24 


Man 


- -5 


.8 


15 


6 


25 


Wish 


— 1.2 


.0 


27 


18.5 


26 


Gruff 


— I.I 


— .2 


25-5 


22 


27 


Cake 


- -4 


.7 


14 


8.5 


28 


Kids 


.1 


1.2 


4-5 


1-5 


29 


Pig 


- .6 


- .0 


17-5 


18.5 


30 


Dog 


- .1 


.6 


9-5 


10.5 


31 


Jumb 


- .6 


— .1 


17-5 


21 



were being about animals, being about children, being about girls, 
being poetry, being humorous. Two qualities that make up poetry 
were distinguished, i.e., poeticalness of thought and verse form. 
The opposites of certain of the qualities were added to the list and a 



30 



Interest Factors in Primary Reading Material 



few others were included, so as to bring up to twenty the total 
number of qualities whose effects on interest were to be sought. For 
convenience in reference to these qualities it has been necessary to 
coin abstract nouns which are given in the complete list which 
follows: adultness, animalness, boyness, childness, conversation, 
familiar experience, fancifulness, girlness, humor, imagery, moral- 
ness, narrativeness, plot, poeticalness, realism, repetition, style, 
surprise, verse form, and liveliness. 

The thirty-one samples were then submitted to adult judges, 
graduate or undergraduate students, or holders of advanced degrees, 
who were instructed to rank them on a scale of i to 7 for each quality 
in turn according to the degree to which, in their opinion, the samples 
were possessed of these qualities. 

The number of returns received from these judges are shown in 

Table VI. 

TABLE VI 

Number and Sex of Judges Who Ranked Samples for Various Qualities 



Quality for Which Samples 


Men 


Women 


Total No. 


were Ranked 


Judges 


Judges 


Judges 


Girlness 


2 


9 


II 


Boyness 


2 


9 


II 


Animalness 


2 


9 


II 


Moralness 


2 


9 


II 


Verse Form 





9 


9 


Poeticalness 


I 


9 


10 


Style 





8 


8 


Liveliness 


2 


9 


II 


Narrativeness 





9 


9 


Humor 


2 


9 


II 


Childness 


2 


9 


II 


Adultness 


2 


9 


II 


Repetition 


I 


9 


10 


Imagery 


I 


9 


10 


Realism 


2 


9 


II 


Fancifulness 


2 


9 


II 


Plot 





9 


9 


Familiar Experience 


2 


9 




Surprise 





8 


8 


Conversation * 


I 


3 


4 



■• Amount of conversation was eventually determined by count of lines. The rank? 
thus determined correlated with those given by the four judges witli an r of .868. 



The Method oj the Present Study 3 1 

The rank finally given each sample was computed by obtaining 
the sum of all the ranks given it by the various judges, and deter- 
mming the relative position of this sum in comparison with similarly 
obtained sums for each of the other samples. 

In general the reliabilities of these ranks are high. These reliabil- 
ities were determined in each case by correlating the ranks derived 
from the judgments of two or three judges with those of another two 

or three, and substituting this r in the formula 

1 -\- in - i)r 
The following were the correlations obtained. 

r, Boyness 3 women correlated with 3 women .809 

r, Boyness 3 women correlated with 2 men .897 

r. Verse Form 3 women correlated with 3 women .992 

r, Poeticalness 3 women correlated with 3 women .825 

r, Style 3 women correlated with 3 women .642 

r, Style 3 women correlated with second 3 women .710 

r, Moralness 3 women correlated with 3 women .807 

r, Moralness 3 women correlated with 2 men .752 

r, Moralness 3 women correlated with second 3 women .885 

r, Moralness 2 men correlated with second 3 women .833 

r, Humor 3 women correlated with 3 women .91 

r, Humor 3 women correlated with 2 men .763 

r, Surprise 2 women correlated with 2 women .535 

r, Narrativeness 3 women correlated with 3 women .518 

r, Narrativeness 3 women correlated with second 3 women .82 

r, Plot 3 women correlated with 3 women .839 

r, Plot 3 women correlated with second 3 women .882 

r, Animalness 3 women correlated with 3 women .972 

r, Animalness 3 women correlated with 2 men .954 

r. Liveliness 3 women correlated with 3 women .877 

r, Liveliness 3 women correlated with 2 men .823 

r, Girlness 3 women correlated with 3 women .82 

r, Childness 3 women correlated with 3 women .782 

r, Repetition 3 women correlated with 3 women .842 

r, Imagery 3 women correlated with 3 women .485 

r, Fancifulness 3 women correlated with 3 women .892 

r, Familiar Experience ... 3 women correlated with 3 women .514 

The lowest of these correlations, for imagery, narrativeness, sur- 
prise, and familiar experience, give a reliability coefiicient of .768 for 
the total rank obtained from 10 judgments of imagery, of .821 for 
that obtained from 8 judgments of surprise, of .763 for that obtained 
from 9 judgments of narrativeness, and of .795 for that obtained 
from II judgments oi familiar experience. 



32 Interest Factors in Primary Reading Material 

The ranks of the thirty-one samples for each quality were next 
correlated with their ranks respectively for interest to boys and in- 
terest to girls, in order to determine the importance of each quality 
in determining such interest. It early became evident, however, that 
the true facts were obscured by the influence in each interest ranking 
of a combination of factors some of which acted together, some in 
opposition. Thus plot, liveliness, and narrativeness, all showed high 
correlation with boys' interests, r, plot, .615, r, liveliness, 
.514, r, narrativeness, .572. It appeared possible that all three of 
these were due to some common factor. The interest of a narra- 
tive might be attributable to its possession of a plot, the interest 
of a narrative either with or without a plot might be due to 
liveliness. 

To eliminate such complicating factors recourse was had to the 
method of partial correlation. No effort is made here to present the 
theory upon which the method is based. For this the reader is 
referred to Chapter XII of Yule's Theory of Statistics. Nor has the 
long and burdensome labor required in the solution of Yule's regres- 
sion equations been undertaken. The method of partial 
correlation has been enormously simplified and rendered widely 
usable by Kelley's tables, and it is with the assistance of these 
tables that all the partial correlations in this study have been 
computed. 

This method has been used to free each of the crude correlations 
which was large enough to appear significant from the probable dis- 
tortion due to an irrelevant correspondence with any other one of 
these significant elements. In general, only partial correlations of 
the first order have been determined, that is to say, though the 
results from eliminating any one of the several complicating factors 
have been computed, in most cases the correlation has not been freed 
of the sum of the effects of two or more variables which may seriously 
alTect the coefificient. Where the crude correlatoins or partial corre- 
lations of the first order showed a quality to have but small effect on 
interest, it has not seemed worth while to pursue the analysis 
farther. This, however, has been done in the case of the elements 
whose crude correlations indicated high efficacy as producers of 
interest, and which still appeared significant after the partial 
correlations of the first order had been computed as described 
above. 



The Method of the Present Study 33 

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SAMPLES USED 

American History Story Book, The. Blaisdell, Albert F. and Ball, Francis K. 
School Edition. Boston: Little Brown and Co., 1912. Copyright, 191 1. 
Sample 3. Bessie Brandon's Unexpected Guest, p. 86. 
Big People and Little People of Other Lands. Shaw, Edward R. New York: 
American Book Co. Copyright, 1900. 
Sample 8. The Pygmies, p. 98. 
Child Life in Many Lands, a Third Reader. Blaisdell, Etta Austin and Blaisdell, 
Mary Frances. New York: Macmillan Co., 1900. Copyright, 1900. 
Sample 6. A Chinese School, p. 165. 
Sample 7. Boys and Girls of Holland, p. 86. 
Elso7i Primary School Reader, Book One. Elson, William H. New York: Scott, 
Foresman Co. Copyright 1912, 1913. 
Sample 27. The Johnny Cake, p. 122. 
Everyday Classics. Third Reader. Baker, Franklin T. and Thorndike, Ashley H. 
New York: Macmillan Co. Copyright, 1917. 
Sample 4. King Alfred and the Cakes, p. 231. 
Sample 14. The Lion and the Mouse, p. 41. 
Sample 15. The Miller, His Son, and Their Donkey, p. 29. 
Sample 21. One, Two, Three, p. 195. 
Sample 24. The Husband Who Kept House, p. 134. 
Sample 25. The Three Wishes, p. 155. 
Everyday Life in the Colonies. Stone, Gertrude L. and Fickett, IVL Grace. 
New York: D. C. Heath Co. Copyright, 1905. 

Sample 5. Candle Making at The Coolidges', p. 61. 
Heart of Oak Books, The. Edited by Norton, Charles Eliot. First Book. New 
York: D. C. Heath Co. Copyright, 1895. 

Sample 29. The Old Woman and Her Pig, p. 82. 
Sample 30. Mother Hubbard and Her Wonderful Dog, p. 36. 
Language Reader, Second Year. Baker, Franklin T., Carpenter, George R. and 
Owen, Katharine B. New York: Macmillan Co. Copyright, 1906. 
Sample 11. One Eye, Two Eyes, and Three Eyes, p. 62. 
Sample 28. The Wolf and the Seven Kids, p. 7. 
Riverside Second Reader. Van Sickle, J. H. and Jenkins, Frances. Boston: Hough- 
ton MifHin Co. Copyright, 191 1. 

Sample 10. Boots and His Brothers, p. 56. 
Sample 17. Dumpy the Pony, p. 40. 
Sample 18. Fiddle Diddle Dee, p. 69. 
Sample 22. The Water Dolly, p. 176. 
Sample 23. Epaminondas, p. 162. 
Sample 26. The Three Billy Goats Gruff, p. 97. 
Riverside Third Reader. Van Sickle. James H. and Seegmiller, W'ilhelmina, 
assisted by Jenkins, Frances. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. Copyright, 19 11. 
Sample 16. A Story of Washington's Boyhood, p. 99. 



34 Interest Factors in Primary Reading Material 

Summers Readers, The. Second Reader. Summers, Maud. New York: Frank 
D. Beattys Co. Copyright, 1907. 

Sample 2. Proserpina. 
Young and Field Literary Readers, Book Three. Young, Ella Flagg and Field, 
Walter Taylor. New York: Ginn and Co. Copyright, 1914. 

Sample i. How the Horses of the Sun Ran Away, p. 197. 

Sample 12. The Queen Bee, p. 17. 

Sample 33. The Jumblies, p. 190. 
Young and Field Literary Readers, Book Two. Ibid. Copyright, 19 14. 

Sample 9. East of the Sun and West of the Moon, p. 119. 

Sample 13. The Honest Woodcutter, p. 45. 

Sample 19. Daisies, p. 173. 



CHAPTER VI 
GENERAL TENDENCIES OF CHILDREN'S INTERESTS 

A. PRIMA FACIE INDICATIONS 

Most notable, perhaps, of the prima facie indications of the tests 
is the narrow range within which all the samples lie. The total 
distance, from the most to the least interesting, is only 2.8 P. E. for 
boys and 2.5 P. E. for girls. In fact, excepting for three extreme 
samples, one at the head and two at the foot of the list, all the boys' 
preferences are encompassed within 1.7 P. E. That is to say, if the 
specimens that by this consensus of children's judgments are most 
and least interestmg were paired and read to a very large number of 
children selected at random, about 5% of the girls and 3% of the 
boys would prefer the sample which here stands at the foot of the 
list, and if the second from the highest and third from the lowest m 
the boys' lists were compared, 12% of the boys would rank the 
latter above the former. All the specimens used in this test are of 
high interest value. If all the reading matter that might con- 
ceivably be prepared to fit the capacity of primary children were 
ranked in order from the least endurable and most boring to the most 
enthralling, these samples would probably all fall in the upper 
quartile. This fact must be remembered in interpreting all the 
conclusions of the study. It is a large cause of what unreliability 
they possess, since preference judgments vary widely where differ- 
ences are slight. It should to a certain extent protect the reader 
against extreme ideas especially as to the poor interest values of 
the samples which rank lowest of those tested. 

A second fact that casual inspection reveals is the inferior position 
of the verse samples. This is especially notable in view of the large 
proportion, 51% of the titles, which poetry assumes in primary 
reading books. One of the five samples of verse included in these 31 
samples. Mother Hubbard and Her Dog, just comes within the upper 
third of the ranks for boys and just fails to attain the upper third 
for girls. The one sample of Stevenson's verse. The Swing, falls in 
the 31st place in the boys' column and the 30th in the girls', and 
another sample of verse ranks 30 for boys and 25.5 for girls. More- 



36 



Interest Factors in Primary Reading Material 



over, these two verse samples at the foot of the boys' list are .5 P. E. 
below any other sample. The distribution is shown below. 

Some indication is afforded as to the interest possibilities of 
factual material. It is a story of a historical character, George 
Washington and the Colt, which holds first place in boys' liking, and 
another such story, Bessie Brandon's Guest, falls in the upper five 
ranks for both boys and girls. It is a historical story, however, 
which has the lowest place in girls' ranks, and the four history 
stories all rank somewhat higher in boys' preferences than in girls'. 
All told, the four history samples were compared in reading to 




Fig. I. Distribution of Samples, Boys 



Q 



£^iA 



Eh 



a 



Fig. 2. Distribution of Samples, Girls 

children with 17 different fiction samples, among which were 
myth, fairy story, folk tale, fable, humor, and a realistic story of 
everyday life. One hundred thirty-three groups of boys and one 
hundred nine groups of girls expressed preferences on history-fiction 
pairs thus made up. The percentages derived from all their votes 
was averaged and the result showed a slight preference for these 
history samples over these fiction samples on the part of both boys 
and girls, 59.25% of boys' votes and 53.75% of girls' votes going to 
the former. There was, however, wide variation among the differ- 
ent history samples. The best liked had a total preference over the 
twelve fictional samples with which it was compared in 57 groups of 
boys and 50 groups of girls, of 74.6% for the boys and 70.05% for 
the girls. The least liked practically reversed these figures. Com- 
pared with 12 different fiction samples, in 24 groups of boys and 23 
of girls, the votes against it were 77.85% for the former and 69.05% 
for the latter. Indications from the data at hand are that it is not 



General Tendencies of Children s Interests 37 

the class, whether history or fiction, to which a reading selection 
belongs that gives it interest, but that it is some more elemental 
quality or cjualities, which may at times characterize selections of 
one class, at times those of another. The same is probably true of 
geographic material, but the test returns have little direct evidence 
on this point. That all three of the selections from this class ranked 
low for both boys and girls may be because they were geography, 
but at least as probably may be because they were deficient in 
elements of interest entirely possible to well selected, well written 
geographic material. The desirability of further analysis of the 
interest elements in factual material is indicated. 

Sex differences appear more or less certainly in several instances. 
The Water Dolly holds sixth place in girls' interest and falls to 
twenty-fourth in boys. It is perhaps noteworthy that for the latter 
it is as high as twenty- fourth. Boys prefer the story of the boy 
Phaeton, who drove the sun god's chariot, to that of the girl Proser- 
pina, who was whirled away in the chariot of the god of the under- 
world ; for girls the order of preference is reversed. Such negative 
correlation between boys' and girls' preferences exists in eleven of 
the forty pairs of samples, but in most of these cases the percentage 
is so little above or below 50% that the differences may be due to 
chance errors. 

B. ELEMENTS OR FACTORS OF INTEREST 

By recourse to correlation, conclusions are obtained which are 
freed from much of the uncertainty and opposition of evidence 
described above, for by this means it is possible to analyze out the 
effect of the degree of one element's absence or presence. Table VII, 
presenting the crude correlations obtained by the Spearman foot- 
rule, at once throws certain elements into prominence and raises 
definite questions with respect to others. 

Seven elemental qualities show with boys' interests a correlation 
above .40; five show such a correlation with girls' interest. The 
seven include all the five, surprise, plot, narrativeness, liveliness, and 
conversation, and add to them animalness and moratness, which also 
correlate positively though not so highly with girls' interest, their 
r's being respectively .258 and .342. 

In addition to the seven elements already named, seven others, 
fancifulness, repetition, poeticalness, boyness, verse form, childness, 



38 



Interest Factors in Primary Reading Material 



TABLE VII 
Correlation of Interest and Twenty Interest Factors 



Correlations for Boys 




Correlations for Girls 




Surprise 


.639 


Surprise 


612 


Plot 


.615 


Conversation 


556 


Narrativeness 


.572 


Plot 


553 


Animalness 


.548 


Narrativeness 


539 


Liveliness 


.514 


Liveliness 


454 


Moralness 


.441 


Fancifulness 


399 


Conversation 


.427 


Repetition 


374 


Fancifulness 


.379 


Moralness 


342 


Repetition 


.267 


Imagery 


263 


Poeticalness 


.255 


Animalness 


258 


Boyness 


.166 


Childness 


258 


Verse Form 


•113 


Poeticalness 


151 


Childness 


.058 


Familiar Experience 


143 


Humor 


•034 


Girlness 


127 


Adultness 


-.044 


Humor 


113 


Imagery 


-.069 


Verse Form 


104 


Familiar Experience 


-113 


Boyness — 


no 


Style 


-151 


Style 


159 


Girlness 


-.212 


Adultness — 


224 


Realism 


-•383 


Realism — 


281 



and humor, correlate positively with boys' interest, and nine others, 
fancifulness, repetition, imagery, childness, poeticalness, familiar 
experience, girlness, humor, and verse form, with girls'. If for both 
the term boyness in the boys' column and the term girlness in the 
girls' column we substitute the expression same-sexness, these nine 
include all these seven. The remaining elements, six for boys and 
four for girls, correlate negatively with interest. Here again, sub- 
stituting the expression other sexness for boyness in the girls' column 
and for girlness in the boys' column, the six, adultness, imagery, 
familiar experience, style, girlness, realism, are found to include the 
four, boyness, style, adultness, realism. 

In general, then, qualities in these reading selections which attract 
boys appear to afifect girls similarly and qualities which repel boys 
to repel girls. The correlation between the ranks of these twenty 



General Tendencies of Children's Interests 39 

qualities as interest producers for boys and for girls respectively is in 
fact .69. 

For primary children in general, and within the range of the 31 
reading samples which have been tested, the elements of surprise, 
plot, narrativeness, animalness, liveliness, moralness, and conversation 
seem to be most efficient as interest producers, with fancifulness and 
repetition as close seconds. There appears a slight favorable reaction 
toward stories of one's own sex and against stories of the other sex. 
Poetry shows little attraction, and of its two possible characteristics, 
poeticalness stands higher than verse form, which is almost negligible. 
Imagery is of little interest value, if not absolutely detracting from 
interest. Humor, at least what adults call humor, apparently con- 
tributes little or nothing to children's likes. This is probably not 
true of humor of the slap-stick or comical mishap variety, but the 
small amount of this in the samples tested is insufficient as a basis 
for a more positive statement. Rhetorical style detracts slightly 
from interest, as does the fact that a story centers about an adult 
rather than a child character. Familiar experiences appear lacking 
in interest, if not actually repellent, and realism, the absence of any 
element of fancy, seems most undesirable. 

In only a few respects are notable sex differences shown. Chief 
of these are the high place which animalness holds in boys' interest, 
and the equal superiority which conversation manifests in girls'. It 
may be recalled that it was an Alice who raised the question, "And 
what is the use of a book without pictures or conversations?" Less 
conspicuous, yet sufficient to deserve attention, is the indicated 
greater preference of girls over boys for stories about children. For 
boys it appears almost indifferent whether the human characters of 
a story are child or adult; girls like a child character just as well as 
an animal character and decidedly more than an adult character. 
There is some indication, also, that familiar experiences, though 
not especially interesting to girls, are yet more welcome to them 
than to boys. Several of these differences, however, are so slight 
that they may be altogether accounted for by chance inaccuracies 
in the original measures. They are chiefly of value to suggest 
questions for further inquiry and experimentation rather than to 
afford the basis for present conclusions. 

Certain questions have probably already arisen in the reader's 
mind as to the justifiability of some of the conclusions towards 



40 Interest Factors in Primary Reading Material 

which the above summary does seem to point. Can it be true that 
children are as fond of distinctively moral stories as the correlations 
of 441 with boys' interest and .342 with girls' interest indicate? 
If so, what justification is there, at least on the basis of interest, 
for the criticisms that have fallen upon the moral subject matter 
which largely made up the old readers? Do children actually dislike 
reading selections which lie in the field of their familiar experiences? 
Is it possible that poetry has so slight an attraction for little chil- 
dren? And do they not enjoy humorous selections? 

It is familiar to students of mental and social facts that a wide 
difference often occurs between obtained and true correlations, 
because of the effect of some irrelevant variant or variants to which 
both the series to be compared in some degree correspond. "It is 
obvious that, in order to measure the essential correlation between 
fact A and fact B, we should have a series of pairs of amounts related 
only through the relationship of A to B. But unless great care is 
taken in the selection of the data, other factors affecting the relation- 
ship of the amounts are sure to enter. Thus, . . . the influence 
of heredity can not be inferred from fraternal correlation until a 
discount is made for the factor, similar training."^ Such discount 
has necessarily to be made not only for one, but for many complicat- 
ing factors in determining the true interest value of any one quality 
of a reading selection, since each selection is sure to involve many 
qualities. A story of a boy may also, and equally, be a story of a 
dog, a narrative, with a plot of greater or less merit, lively, abound- 
ing in conversation, and withal pointing an approved moral. The 
true weight of any one of these characteristics as interest producers 
can only be determined by eliminating the influence exerted on the 
correlation measure by all the others. This fact has necessitated 
the use of the method of partial correlation, as has already 
been stated in the description of the general method of this 
study. 

Tables VIII and IX present the results of partial correlations of the 
first order, eliminating in turn each one of the nine most significant 
factors from each of its fellows. An examination of the figures shows 
that thus throwing out only one irrelevant factor reduces to practical 
negligibility the significance of nearly half of these elements. 

Moralness without the effect of plot now shows an r of .0336 for 

' Thorndike. Mental and Social Measurements, pp. 180, 181. 



General Tendencies of Children's Interests 
TABLE VIII 

Crude Correlations and Results of Partl\l 
Correlations of First Order, Most Significant Qualities 

GIRLS 



41 



r 


'H 
< 


1 

g 



'2, 


1 


1 


2 




1 


M 


Crude Correlation 
Animalness eliminated 


.258 


•556 
.5158 


399 

.3486 

•2675 


•454 
•3857 
.1204 
.3200 

.4790 
.1930 
•3341 
•3161 
.0956 


•342 

•3065 

.1817 

•3865 

•3780 


•539 

•4955 

.2892 

.4226 

•3767 

.4510 


•553 
•5235 
•3645 
.4471 

•4725 
.4666 
.1944 


•374 
•3195 
•1715 
.1976 

•1554 
•4483 
.3882 

•4745 


.612 

■5951 

•4963 

.5358 

.4711 

.6005 

.4865 

•4931 


Conversation 


•0937 
•1579 
.0198 
.2061 
.0874 

•1553 
.1622 
.1901 




.4872 
.3816 
■4943 
•3302 
•3735 
•4715 
.4107 


Liveliness " 
Moralness 


.2250 

•4354 
.1644 
.1780 
.2491 
.2061 


Narrativeness 


.0851 

-•0523 
.4236 
.3126 


Plot 


.1386 
•5467 
•3671 


Repetition 


.6115 
•3998 


Surprise 


.1639 





TABLE IX 

Crude Correlations and Results of Partial 
Correlations of First Order, Most Significant Qualities 



r 


1 
< 


1 

u 


1 


1 


<5 


•J. 


E 


c 
.2 

1 


.2 
a 


Crude Correlation 

Animalness eliminated 

Conversation 

Fancifulness 

Liveliness 

Moralness 


•548 

•4763 
•4917 
•3764 
•5231 


.427 
.3112 

.3426 
.1273 

■:j207 


•379 

•2683 
•2743 

.1663 
•4369 


•514 
.3089 
•3350 
•4043 

■5677 


.441 
•4045 

•3397 
•4895 
.5070 


•572 

.4849 

•4293 

•4741 

•3864 

•4476 


.615 

•5955 

•5055 

•5317 

•5417 

•4798 

72902 

.6502 
.4830 


.267 
.1215 
.0958 
.0707 
— .0412 
.3640 
.2636 
•3723 

.0064 


•639 

•6572 

•5592 

•5725 

•4705 

.6414 


Narrativeness 
Plot 

Repetition 
Surprise " 


•4527 
•5241 
.5070 
•5726 


.1063 
• 1479 
•3566 
.2186 


.1178 
.1099 
.2858 
.1664 


.2615 
.4044 
•4557 
.1681 


.2061 
•0336 
•4985 
.4462 


■0935 
•5713 
.4071 


•5167 
•5195 
.6017 



42 Interest Factors in Primary Reading Material 

boys and — .0523 for girls, that is to say, it is a matter of indifference 
whether a story does or does not convey moral teaching. At least 
for the range of the samples of this study, selections with a moral 
implicit or expressed are interesting to children, it is true; not, how- 
ever, on account of the moral element, but because so good a plot 
has been employed in setting forth this moral. The household tales 
have persevered through generations, not because of their presenta- 
tions of virtue triumphant and evil properly punished, but because 
they are good stories. 

Indications are that an interest in animals is a certainty in the 
case of boys, but that where girls are concerned, all the apparent 
animal interest may be explained by either conversation or liveliness 
or narrativeness as a coexistent factor. For when these elements are 
respectively eliminated, the correlations fall to .0937, .0198, and 
.0874. Repetition and narrativeness, so far as boys' interest is con- 
cerned, lose all their weight, being reduced to approximately zero, 
the former by the elimination of the influence of either fancifulness, 
liveliness, or surprise, the latter by the elimination of the plot ele- 
ment. 

Only two factors, plot and surprise, maintain an interest co- 
efficient for both boys and girls as high as .15, no matter which one 
of the other nine items is eliminated, plot falling to .1944 for girls 
and .2902 for boys when the weight of narrativeness is removed, 
and surprise persisting throughout with a very high ratio, no less 
than .47 for either sex in any case. For girls fancifulness and 
repetition are not reduced below .15, and for boys liveliness main- 
tains as high a correlation. It may be noted that the reduction of the 
correlation for fancifulness implies a raising of realism in interest 
value. 

So far as the facts go which are obtainable from partial correla- 
tions of the first order, decidedly the most important factors in pro- 
ducing interest for children of primary grades are a good plot and 
the element of surprise. In addition, boys are especially interested 
by accounts of animals. Moral teaching in a story apparently 
neither makes nor mars interest. All the rest of the nine elements 
which showed high correlations with interest for both boys and 
girls seem to be minor influences, with slight positive value. 

In only a few cases in this study has partial correlation been 
employed in the case of those qualities whose original crude cor- 



General Tendencies of Children's Interest 43 

relations were already very low. Notable among the results in 
these few cases were the effects of freeing girlness for girls, boyness 
for boys, and childness, realism, humor, verse form, and poeticalness 
for both from the irrelevant presence of the liveliness variable, and of 
eliminating the factor of plot from the crude correlations between 
familiar experience and the interest of boys and girls. 

The correlation for humor was strikingly lowered, from .034 to 
- -3334 and from . 1 1 3 to — . 1 730, in the case of boys and girls respect- 
ively. Humor, or what adults term humor, appears on the basis of 
this even less contributory to interest than the crude correlation 
indicated; in fact, it is now shown as actually detracting from 
children's liking. Verse form was lowered in interest value from .113 
to .001 (boys) and from .104 to .0058 (girls), and poeticalness from 
.255 to .1186, and from .151 to .0136 respectively; in other words 
both these elements were shown as practically indifferent, neither 
making nor marring interest. 

For all the other apparently minor interests freed from the com- 
plicating presence of liveliness as a factor, the contrary effect was 
produced. The correlations of girlness with girls' interests, boyness 
with boys' interests, and childness with both, all were raised, girl- 
ness from .127 to .2367, boyness from .166 to .2347, and child- 
ness from .058 to .2161 in the case of boys and from .258 to 
.4223 in the case of girls. Even more striking is the partial corre- 
lation of familiar experience with interest, plot having been elimi- 
nated. Whereas the r for boys was decidedly negative, — .214, 
it now becomes very slightly positive, .0306, while for girls the low 
positive r, .143, rises to significant proportions, .324. These are all 
samples of factors whose interest value is masked by the con- 
comitance of certain elements of negative effect. Familiar experi- 
ence, no worse than indifferent for boys, and a decided cause of 
interest for girls, is so bound up in the samples of this test with 
deficiencies of plot that it appears to repel, when in reality it falls 
low because selections with high plot value are given the upper place. 

The foregoing answers some questions raised by an inspection of 
the crude correlations, and illustrates the means which is available 
for further analysis of other doubtful results of similar cause. By 
this means the evidence that children are much attracted by moral 
stories is refuted, as is the appearance of dislike for reading material 
dealing with the field of familiar experiences. Poetry, however, is 



44 Interest Factors in Primary Reading Material 

credited with rather less attractiveness than was originally indi- 
cated, and what is humor to the adult is actually negative in effect. 

It should be noted that the results as described above are by no 
means freed from all irrelevants. The single effects of various com- 
plicating factors have been eliminated, not the sum total of all their 
effects. It is theoretically possible to carry forward an analysis, by 
the derivation of partial coefficients to the second, third, fourth, or 
«th degree, so that each one of these interest elements would be 
freed of all irrelevants. It is likewise theoretically possible to 
consider other elements not mentioned at all in this study, and to 
carry these, too, to a true expression of their interest values. Prac- 
tically, the laboriousness of deriving partial correlations eliminating 
all irrelevant factors has necessitated limitation of the application of 
this process to only the most significant factors, or to those cases 
where it seemed probable that the true positive value was masked 
by the presence of negative elements. Partial correlations of the 
fifth order were thus computed for animalness, childness, con- 
versation, familiar experience, fancifulness, humor, liveliness, moral- 
ness, narrativeness, plot, repetition, surprise, and verse form, the 
results being shown in Table X. 

For the benefit of those who are unfamiliar with the expressions of 
partial correlation, it may be stated that the two letters before the 
point indicate the quantities whose correlation is sought; the 
letters after the point those quantities from whose distorting effect 
the crude correlation has been freed. Thus r ,a.plfsm means the 
correlation of interest with animalness after eliminating the share of 
plot, liveliness, fancifulness, surprise, and moralness in producing the 
original crude correlation between interest and animalness. The 
effect of partial correlation appears very strikingly in such a case as 
^ iL.PRSACh. The crude correlation of interest with liveliness was 
-f .514 for boys and +454 for girls. But the correlation of interest 
with liveliness, after eliminating the contribution of plot, repetition, 
surprise, animalness, and childness, to the degree that each of these 
qualities occurred along with liveliness in the samples, is — .21 for 
boys and — .00 for girls. All the interest value superficially attrib- 
uted to liveliness appears to have been due to the other qualities 
which the samples possessed. In fact, the interest value of those 
other qualities was so strong as to mask a probable negative effect 
of liveliness on the interest of boys. 



General Tendencies of Children's Interest 

TABLE X 
Extended Partial Correlations for Most Significant Factors 



45 



r 


Boys 


Girls 


r 


Boys 


Girls 


lA.PLFSM 


+ •57 


+ .09 


IH.PRSACh 


-•35 


4-. 10 


lA.PLSMR 


+•57 


+.09 


IH.PRSACo 


-•4' 


-.28 


lA.ChPSLCo 


+ •57 


+.12 








lA.CoPSLCh 


+•57 


+ .12 


IL.PRSACh 


-.21 


-.00 








IL.PRSACo 


-.24 


-.07 


ICh.CoPSLA 


+ •21 


+.41 


IL.PRSAF 


-.27 


-.14 


ICh.PRSACo 


+ .27 


+ .46 








ICh.PRSAH 


+ .02 


+•43 


IM.ALFSP 


+•03 


+ .09 


ICh.PRSAL 


+ •19 


+•44 


IM.PLRSA 


+ .06 


+ .02 


ICo.ChPSLA 


-•05 


+ .26 


IN.PRSAH 


-•05 


+ .08 


ICo.PRSACh 


-.16 


+ .18 








ICo.PRSAFam 


-■15 


+•17 


IP.ALFMS 


+•30 


+•15 


ICo.PRSAH 


+.03 


+•27 


IP.ALRMS 


+ •32 


+•34 


ICo.PRSAL 


-.01 


+ .29 


IP.MSChCoR 


+ •32 


+.32 


ICo.PRSAV 


-.14 


+ •17 














IR.PLSMA 


+.08 


+.32 


IFam.PRSACo 


+.11 


+ •44 


IR.MSChCoP 


+.18 


+ .20 


IF.PLSMA 


-.07 


+•09 


IS.ALFMP 


+•58 


+■39 


IF.PRSAL 


-.19 


-.18 


IS.ALRMP 


+.56 


+.36 


IH.PRSAN 


-•39 


-.20 


IV.PRSACo 


— .01 


— .02 



A, animalness; Ch, childness; Co, conversation; F, fancifulness; Fam, familiar 
experience; H, humor; L, liveliness; M, moralness; N, narrativeness; P, plot; 
R, repetition; S, surprise; V, verse form. 

This table in general confirms some indications of the crude 
correlations and reverses others. Surprise and plot persist as impor- 
tant causes of interest for both sexes, as do animalness for boys, and 
childness for girls, with some change in the amount of influence in 
each case. Conversation is reduced to slight positive value for girls 
and becomes actually negative in the case of boys. Repetition 
remains positive, but of low value, especially for boys. Moralness, 
apparently of importance in producing interest, proves to be a 
matter of indifference for both sexes. The same is true of narrative- 
ness. Fancifulness, also of decided interest value according to the 



46 Interest Factors in Primary Reading Material 

crude correlations, shows itself at best indifferent, and perhaps 
actually antagonistic to interest. Even more marked is the reversal 
of the original showing as to liveliness, which, from a position as one 
of the five most important factors for both sexes is reduced to un- 
questionably negative influence for boys and negative or neutral 
effect for girls. Familiar experience, on the other hand, at first appar- 
ently negative for boys and low in positive value for girls, now shows 
itself at least positive for boys, and for girls ranking as high as 
childness, the two being most potent of all the elements here analyzed 
in producing girls' interest. Verse form is even more surely indiffer- 
ent than the original r's indicate, and humor is reduced from mere 
indifference to strong negative influence for boys, and to probable 
negativ^eness for girls. 

Characteristics which may be expected to cause interest in primary 
children are, it appears, surprise and plot for both sexes, animalness 
for boys, and childness, familiar experience, and to a lesser degree 
repetition and conversation for girls. It is significant that the interest 
value of surprise outranks that of plot, since thereby a large amount 
of factual material, lacking the story element, but abounding in 
elements of wonder and unexpectedness, is of promise as affording 
interesting reading matter for primary children. That childness only 
slightly adds to interest for boys means, conversely, that selections 
dealing with adult characters will probably appeal to them as much 
as incidents dealing with children. This may be a root of the slight 
superiority of boys to girls in history indicated by the few com- 
parative studies of high school pupil's abilities. The rank of King 
Alfred and the Cakes in this study is, it may be recalled, 31 for girls 
and 20.5 for boys. Similarly, preferences noted for boys over girls 
for stories of adventure may be due to the fact that whereas girls 
are decidedly attracted by accounts dealing with their own familiar 
experience, this element is for boys a matter of practical indifference. 

For several of the elements here evaluated, the statistical findings 
are quite at variance with generally accepted ideas. The unfavor- 
able effect of liveliness, particularly for boys, is one of the most 
surprising facts revealed by the process of partial correlation here 
applied. Far from adding to interest, as the crude correlations 
and common opinion would indicate, it detracts. It is probable 
that if a story moves at too rapid a rate, the imagination of the 
little child cannot keep pace with it, and, missing one salient point 



General Tendencies of Children's Interest 47 

after another, soon finds itself groping in a maze of jumbled ideas, 
a situation which is sure to prove annoying. This point will be 
again referred to in a further discussion of famitiar experience in 
a later chapter. That fancifulness adds nothing, but perhaps dero- 
gates from interest, is also not in accord with the popular idea. 
Much emphasis is laid in pedagogical writings upon the value of 
fairy tales for their imagmative values, their appeal to the fancy, 
their freedom from the carping confines of realism. The indication 
of this study is that it is not the fancifulness of the fairy lore that 
causes its appeal, but other interest factors which it possesses, such 
as surprise, plot, childness, animalness, or familiar experience; and 
that true or realistic selections, equally possessed of these desirable 
characters, would be equally interesting. 

There is also here no warrant for the common belief that verse form 
is attractive to children. A generous interpretation of the statistical 
results can no more than make it indifferent in value. If verse form 
counts neither for nor against interest, children's enjoyment of 
of poetry will depend upon its other qualities. If the verse of the 
early readers is selected for its richness in true factors of interest it 
will be enjoyed and a developing taste for poetry may be expected. 
If, on the contrary, the tastes of childhood are ignored or violated, 
either the habit of neglectmg or actual distaste for this form of 
literature will be the outcome. In other words, if a taste for, an 
interest in, an enjoyment of poetry is desired, it must be built up by 
intelligent application of the psychological law of effect. Other- 
wise, the same law will of a surety bring about the opposite result. 
Poems which tell a story, for example, rather than those of the more 
meditative or descriptive type, would seem to be indicated. It 
is interesting in this connection to recall the two samples of verse 
which, in Wissler's study, were found to be popular in second and 
third readers: 

Two little kittens, one stormy night 
Began to quarrel and then to fight, 
and 

Now such a story I never heard 

There was a little shivering bird. 

Each is seen to possess to a considerable degree the elements of 
plot, animalness, and familiar experience; and the childness and sur- 
prise elements are additional characteristics of the second. 



48 Interest Factors in Primary Reading Material 

It is recognized that the limited proportion of poetic selections 
in the samples of this study is not adequate for final conclusions 
along these lines. There may be questions, also, as to the effect of 
poetry upon different ages or stages of the primary and pre-primary 
period. The question of interest values in verse may well be made 
the subject of a special investigation to settle doubts or answer 
questions raised by the findings of this study. 

Generalizations as to humor are particularly difficult, since humor 
as the child sees it and humor to the adult mind are not one and the 
same. Children laugh at funny mishaps, but are often baffled by 
the hidden meanings or by the subtle turns of expression and 
thought that make humor for the adult. A case in point is the 
story of Epaminondas and His Auntie, one of the thirty-one 
samples used in the test. Said a teacher, "I never liked the ending 
of that story. I don't believe any of the children see the point, when 
the mother says, 'You be careful how you step on those pies,' and 
the story goes on to say, 'And Epaminondas was careful. He stepped 
right m the middle of each pie.' " A small girl, four years old, 
being told this story, laughed loudly throughout it. Two weeks 
later, on the story-teller's next visit, she begged for it again. The 
same thing occurred at intervals of two weeks for about three 
months. Each time she laughed, but the laughter was less genuine, 
more forced. Finally she burst forth, " I don't see a grain of sense 
in that story. Every time he did what his mother told him to, and 
every time she scolded him for it." She had missed the point of 
the story; her laughter had been for the butter running into 
the boy's face and down his neck, the loaf of bread traihng in 
the dust, the puppy dog cooled and cooled in the spring. This 
story was almost unanimously ranked first for humor by adult 
judges, ID out of II giving it first place, the nth giving it second 
among the 31 samples of the test. It ranks as number 3 for girls 
and number 11. 5 for boys in the interest scale. There are two other 
selections in the 31 samples which deal with comical situations or 
mishaps. The Husband Who Kept House and The Three Wishes. 
These were ranked by adults in second and third places respectively 
for humor. They appear as ranks 6 and 18.5 in the girls' interest 
scale, and ranks 15 and 27 in the boys'. The rank of any humorous 
selection, however, is a compounded result of all its factors. Humor, 
itself, analyzed out from all accompanying elements, makes for 



General Tendencies of Children's Interest 49 

dislike and distaste, at least so far as the samples of this study are 
concerned. As in the case of verse, the number and variety of 
humorous samples here afforded perhaps do not warrant a dog- 
matic conclusion. In humor, also, further and more specific investi- 
gations seem necessary. The indications of this study will at least 
serve to point out questionable issues, and to protect against the 
unwarranted assumption that there is large interest value for chil- 
dren in either humor or verse in general. 

The reduction of the interest value of both moralness and narra- 
tiveness to zero is noteworthy. Both of them have owed their 
apparent importance to coexistent elements of real value. To point 
out only one of these elements, the crude correlation of moralness 
and plot is +.679, of narrativeness and plot is +.875. It appears that 
there is no original tendency to prefer selections with a moral 
implication. Neither do these repel. This is not to say, however, 
that there is no preference for a right outcome, for the triumph of 
the true and good. There is nothing in the material or the results of 
these tests upon which any conclusion on this point may be based. 
As for the narrative, the neutral value of its form alone is not sur- 
prising. We have all been bored by tedious accounts of happenings 
uninteresting in themselves. We may recall the ancient Story 
without an End in which the monarch was wearied to such a degree 
by the detailed account of the removal of a storehouse full of wheat, 
grain by grain, "And another bird came and took away another 
grain," that he offered his kingdom and his daughter if the story- 
teller would only cease the tiresome iteration. 

Throughout this investigation nothing has been found which, 
from the standpoint of interest, warrants the highly partial selec- 
tion at present characteristic of primary readers. Nothing here 
indicates that the child is in an "age of pure fancy" nor that legends 
and folk tales as a class are the most interesting of all possible ma- 
terial for primary pupils. As for poetry, the evidence is all against, 
rather than for, its very large proportion in primary reading material. 
Instead of this limited range of liking, a child's tastes appear rather 
catholic. Give him a few important elemental qualities which may 
enter into fact or fiction, into prose or verse, into real or fanciful 
situations, and he is attracted and pleased. 

Nor is there any indication of a necessity for sex differentiation. 
In general, there are certain differences in degree between some of 



50 Interest Factors in Primary Reading Material 

the preferences of boys and girls. If a wide range of reading matter 
is available for all it will provide both for the general tendencies and 
for individual differences within each sex. For it must be remem- 
bered that the three elements, animalness, familiar experience, and 
childness, which are notably significant in the interest of one sex, 
are all positive in value for the other sex also, and that surprise and 
plot are important interest determiners for both. 

Interest, in fine, offers no obstacle to an all-round selection of 
primary reading material. The qualities which are important as 
factors of interest may, by skillful authorship, be embodied in 
almost any class of reading material. What is needed is this skillful 
treatment of fields hitherto neglected or taboo in primary reading 
books, together with wise and balanced selection among the enor- 
mous amount of matter already in existence in more favored classes 
of material. 



CHAPTER VII 
VARIATIONS IN INTEREST AND THEIR CAUSES 

The preceding chapters have been concerned with general ten- 
dencies indicated by the test returns. General tendencies and 
averages, however, are only half the truth; the nature and extent 
of variation from the central tendency are equally important. The 
former afford criteria and principles which apply on a large scale, 
the latter protect against undue expectation of uniformity in the 
reactions of human beings, and induce recognition of and provision 
for individual differences. 

A striking characteristic of the percentages of group preferences 
in the case of any given pair of samples tested in this study was their 
variability. The following representative distributions have been 
taken at random from the returns, the first four cases being per- 
centages of boys' preferences, the last four cases of girls' preferences: 

Case A: 3, 18, 23, 25, 29, 30, 33, 40, 44, 50, 64, 67 

Case B: o, 0,27,42,54,58,59,60,63,65,70, 82 

Case C: o, 7,11,19,27,29,33,50,60,61,63, 80 

Case D: 25, 41, 44, 63, 71, 75, 78, 80, 80, 80, 89, 89 

Case E: 7, 24, 27, 29, 30, 36, 40, 43, 43, 54, 63, 81 

Case F: 10, 22, 25, 40, 42, 43, 48, 55, 74, 85, 86, 100 

Case G: 8, 28, 29, 40, 44, 47, 47, 63, 71, 71, 87, 88 

Case H: o, o, 7, 8, 10, 10, 13, 15, 20, 20, 67, 83 

It may appear that such a range, without any discoverable mode, 
should have been corrected by the use of more classes for each pair 
of samples. This was tried, but the following distribution of boys' 
and girls' percentages of preferences respectively, for a pair which 
was read to seventeen classes instead of to twelve, indicates that only 
from an increase so large as to be prohibitive might a normal dis- 
tribution of returns have been expected; Case I, boys: o, o, 14, 17, 
20, 26, 36, 43, 44, 45, 50, 60, 64, 67, 69, 100. Case I, girls: 25, 29, 29, 
30, 33, 45, 47, 50, 57, 69, 73, 75, 77, 86, 92, 96, 100. 

All this variability is probably due to one or more of three large 
causes. The first of these, as has already been noted, is the narrow 
range within which all the samples lie. With a total difference of no 
more than 2.5 P.E. between the highest and the lowest of 31 samples, 



52 Interest Factors in Primary Reading Material 

the average difference between any two of consecutive rank is less 
than .1 P.E. This means that the average of preference for any one 
sample over that next below it in rank is only 53%, or little 
more than a chance distribution. Where the scale is so evenly 
balanced, very slight causes are able to produce results out of all 
proportion to their importance. It is difficult to see how this factor of 
variability can be eliminated in a study of any practical value. 
For it must always be in the upper interest ranges that any 
material will lie which is seriously considered as subject matter for 
children's reading. 

The second cause of variability is the composite nature of any 
reading selection. Into it enter theme, style, characters, and many 
other elements, so that it is not one fact that is being measured, but 
a complex of many, a condition from which a unimodal distribution 
cannot be expected. This difficulty may be decreased or obviated 
by limiting the range of selections tested or by alteration of samples 
for purposes of comparison. Thus the field might be limited to 
include only samples of history and fiction, or of narrative and lyric 
verse, carefully selected so as to be fairly equal in important interest 
factors, such as plot, conversation, liveliness, or animal characters. 
Or samples with the element to be studied either added or sub- 
tracted, might be compared with the same samples before altera- 
tion. Indeed, the returns from this more general study indicate the 
importance of further investigation into a number of the narrower 
fields here included. 

Finally, variability results from the individual and group differ- 
ences of the pupils and classes studied. This was to be expected, and 
is desirable, since only from the reactions of a wide range of indi- 
viduals can the general tendencies common to all individuals of their 
age-group be determined with any assurance. Were this the only 
cause of variability in the expressed preferences, a sufficient number 
of random cases would present a distribution of the normal type with 
a distinct central tendency. 

With, however, the reading material to be tested a complex of 
many interest factors, existing to varying degrees in the different 
samples; with a complex also of human sensitivities in the indi- 
viduals and groups who expressed preferences among this material ; 
and finally with large opportunity for the action of chance, due to 
the slight and sometimes almost indistinguishable differences in a 



Variations in Interest and their Causes 



53 



pair of samples, the wide and apparently multimodal distribution of 
our returns is to be expected, is, indeed, unavoidable. 

Both the amount of this variability and its causes are valuable to 
educational theory and practice. The amount is important as an 
indication of the desirable range of reading curriculum material, 
which should be selected not only in the light of the average or 
general tendency of children's interests, but also of the likings of 
children in particular, those who vary from the mean as well as 
those who closely approach it, the aim in every case being realiza- 
tion to the full upon the capital which each child's initial stock of 
interests affords. 

Of the causes which have been cited to account for the unusual 
variability of the results of this study, only those which are a matter 
of differences in individuals or in groups are significant in relation 
to its purposes. The composition of reading material or its general 
high quality are here only situations to which children respond in 
various ways; the important matters are the children's individual 
and group differences in responding, and the causes either in heredity 
or environment that produce these varied responses to stimuli, which, 
however complex, are practically the same for all. 

Both the likenesses shown by general tendencies and the differ- 
ences indicated by variability are in fact to be accounted for. For 
this purpose, besides what may be drawn from the statistical data 
and conclusions, there are certain indications in facts available as 
to the composition of various classes and in spontaneous reactions 
of the children aside from those called for in the test directions. 
These are in no sense conclusive, but are assembled in the following 
pages for what light they can throw on the causes of variability in 
interest and the possibility of interest development. 

There is ground for the belief that certain sex differences here 
shown are innate, whereas others are probably acquired. The 
preference of boys over girls for animalness, and of girls over boys 
for childness and conversation, are probably cases of the former, 
whereas it appears possible that the reaction in favor of same- 
sexness, and against other-sexness, is an illustration of the latter. 
There is not in the case of children as young as these any difference 
in contacts or experiences in the three fields first mentioned. Boys 
and girls under nine or ten play with children, have animal pets in 
common or interchangeably, and share in the same conversations. 



54 Interest Factors in Primary Reading Material 

No social tradition or taboo has as yet been brought to bear upon 
the boy to induce in him the behef that affairs of children are beneath 
his dignity, nor have little girls been chided for romping with kittens 
or dogs, or for an interest in pigs or cows or ponies or animals of the 
circus. Parents commonly call the attention of children of either 
sex to animals passed by the roadside or seen from the railroad train. 
Chattering and listening eagerly to the conversation of others is not 
thought of as peculiar to either sex in the case of small children. 
The child who talks over much is a "chatterbox," one who listens 
eagerly is a "little pitcher." Both terms are nouns of common or 
neuter gender. But children with certain other over- or under-devel- 
oped traits are early branded as "tomboys" or "sissies." "Don't be a 
girl," is a common reproof for the small boy who cries at a slight hurt. 
Whether or not such uncomplimentary references by adults to 
supposedly feminine traits are its cause, a conscious attitude of 
superiority of boys over girls begins to appear even in the primary 
grades. In a first grade, the selections Epaminondas and The Water 
Dolly were read. After the voting was done, one boy was heard 
hooting at his neighbor. "He's a girl," he jeered. "He voted for the 
Dolly story." After the votes were collected in another first grade, a 
boy was trying to tell the reader which one he liked best of all, but 
could not remember the stories' names. They were suggested to 
him one by one, and when The Water Dolly was thus named, he 
exclaimed scornfully, "You don't think I'm a girl, do you?" It is not 
surprising, therefore, that a distinct consciousness of preference or 
antipathy for the girl or boy element in a story is developed by the 
third grade. A 3B grade of boys in a New York City public school 
voted 38 to o for How the Horses of the Sun Ran Away, when that 
story was paired with Candle Making at the Coolidges\ and gave as 
the reason for their unanimity the fact that the latter was "about 
girls." (As a matter of fact, a mother, grandmother, two grown 
sons, and one little girl figured in the story, and the cause of the 
grade's preference was probably far more complex than they them- 
selves realized.) Being told that Bessie Brandon s Guest, read in the 
same period (and for which they had expressed a preference of 23 to 
6 over Boots and His Brothers, paired with it) was also about girls, 
their reply was emphatic, "That's about George Washington." Both 
sexes in still another third grade expressed the same attitude. Boots 
and His Brothers was compared with East of the Sun and West of the 



Variations in Interest and their Causes 55 

Moon. The boys voted 100% for the former, the girls 100% for the 
latter. Asked why they chose the stories as they did, the boys said 
they liked Boots because it was "about a boy," whereas the girls 
stated that their choice of the other was because it was "about a 
girl." Whether this attitude is innate or acquired, it is undoubtedly 
raised into consciousness in the minds of both sexes before the end 
of the primary grade period. 

Another interest to which training certainly contributes is that in 
stories about Washington. There were two such stories in this 
test, sample 3 and 16, the former telling of a little girl's encounter 
with Washington, the man, the latter of an incident of his boyhood. 
The former ranked fourth for girls, and tied for second place for 
boys; the latter stood first in boys' preferences, and tied for eighth 
place in girls'. Again and again the children stated as their reason 
for liking these stories that they were "about Washington." One 
such statement was quoted in a preceding paragraph as an explana- 
tion of the preference for number 3 over a fairy story with a boy 
hero, which in general occupied a high place in the boys' liking. A 
second grade girl, voting on samples 16 and 17, said, "I knew which 
it would be as soon as I heard the name. I always do." She voted for 
number 16, and apparently meant by her statement to indicate a 
constant preference for stories about Washington. Other reasons 
given for voting for this sample were "Because it is our country," 
"He was our first president," "It is patriotic," "Our flag is in it," 
"He told the truth." That this definite and conscious preference was 
to some extent due to the fact that these tests were given in the 
spring of 191 8, when patriotic enthusiasm was at white heat, is most 
probable. This is, however, but added evidence of the effect of en- 
vironment in developing interests. 

The votes of the negro pupils in a few grades in which they made 
up a considerable per cent were interesting in this connection. There 
were twelve such grades with from one-third [to two-thirds of the 
class negro, all in the same New York city school. To four of these 
grades one or the other of the GeorgeWashingtonstorieswas read, with 
a resultant vote showing decidedly less interest in this hero on the part 
of the negroes than was the usual case with white children, or than 
was the case with the white children in this tchool. There were 89 
white and 55 colored children here tested with these samples. The 
white children's combined votes gave a total of 53 to 36 in favor of 



56 Interest Factors in Primary Reading Material 

the George Washington stories; the negroes' total was i8 for these 
stories to 37 against them. In one of the four grades, a class of 3 B 
girls, the negroes gave a larger per cent to Bessie Brandon's Guest, 
paired with East of the Sun and West of the Moon, than did the whites, 
50% negro, 39% white. In each of the other three the per cent was 
lower, 11%, 70%, and 15% respectively for negroes as compared 
with 35%, 100%, and 67% for whites, for the pairs 16-24 with 3 B 
girls, 16-15 with 3 A boys, and 3-10 with 2 B boys. In the last pair, 
particularly, the negro boys reacted strongly in favor of the story 
of a boy hero. Boots and His Brothers, as against a girl's story, 
Bessie Brandon's Guest, just as the white boys would also have done 
if they had conceived the latter as a "girl story" and not a story 
"about George Washington." A possible explanation of the differ- 
ence would be different training. These negroes in considerable 
numbers were recent arrivals in New York, being part of the exodus 
from the South that took place during the war. 

These data are so inconclusive that they would not be worth 
citing had this lack of agreement not been the general tendency m 
the votes of the white and negro pupils of this school. Their correla- 
tion by the method of unlike signed pairs was, it is true, .72, but the 
trend of the total negro votes in 22 classes was in the direction 
opposite to the whites, and in only 7 of these classes were white 
and negro votes approximately the same in both direction and 
percentage. 

Besides the difference in George Washington stories, there was 
considerable difference in stories dealing with simple home life of 
a rural or household type. It was such a story, Bessie Brandon's 
Guest, that received from 3B negro girls the highest vote of the 
negroes for a George Washington story, and the only percentage of 
negro votes for such a story which exceeded that given by white 
pupils in the same grade. It was such another story, The Husband 
Who Kept House, to which another group of negro girls gave 89% 
of their votes when it was compared with George Washington and 
the Colt. In three grades, samples 6 and 5, A Chinese School and 
Candle Making at Coolidges', were paired, and in every one the 
negroes' percentage of preference for number 5 exceeded the whites, 
being 74%, 80%, and 88% for negroes as against 40%, 74%, 
and 57% for whites. The story of The Johnny Cake paired with The 
Water Dolly received 82% of negro and 54% of white votes, and 



Variations in Interest and their Causes 57 

paired with Epaminondas 61% of the former and 47% of the latter. 
The Honest Woodcutter was preferred to Boots and His Brothers by 
59% of negro boys, whereas the white boys in the same grade gave a 
53% vote to the other selection. When compared with The Lion 
and the Mouse in a first grade, The Honest Woodcutter received 86% 
of the negroes' votes as against 72% of the whites'. While some of 
these differences are not large, and all of them together are not con- 
clusive, they do tend to suggest that the negro children, because of 
the apperceptive basis afforded by the country or small town 
environment in which they had probably grown up, had different 
interests from the children who were native to the city. It could 
hardly be that race and not environment accounts for what differ- 
ence exists, for no race could be instinctively set against an interest 
in George Washington; nor instinctively set for an interest in cook- 
ing breakfast; making a Johnny cake and following it through mad 
experiences with cows, hens, and pigs; dipping candles with the 
paraphernalia of a big kettle and an open hearth ; churning, minding 
the baby, and feeding the cow; or chopping wood in the forest. 
These are the homely experiences recounted in those stories which 
negroes prefer above white children, and in which it is here sug- 
gested they have an interest because the circumstances of their 
lives have possibly touched most if not all these experiences and 
hence have provided a basis for understanding and enjoyment. If 
this be a true supposition, it is in line with the indication of a general 
liking for Washington stories, that environment is to a large degree 
a determiner of interests, and that such determination begins when 
experience begins. And both of these are in line with the positive 
correlation of interest and familiar experience obtained when the 
crude correlations are changed to extended partials. 

It has been hinted above that better comprehension is probably 
an element that enters into whatever value familiar experience has 
as an interest factor. It seems quite likely that some part of the 
reason why Candle Making at the Coolidges' falls so low in the primary 
children's interest scale, is their failure to get its meaning, because 
their experience has not included hearths, kettles, candle rods, or 
indeed much of what went to make up the colonial scene which it 
presents. Hence as it is read to them they get only a hazy impression, 
which grows irritating before the ten minutes it takes to read the 
storv are at an end. Their restlessness and wandering attention 



58 Interest Factors in Primary Reading Material 

suggests this. Questions asked in many grades at the conclusion of 
the voting on this story brought out clearly the fact of lack of 
comprehension. No class thus questioned sensed what candle dip- 
ping meant; candle moulding was all that any of them knew. A 
picture or objective demonstration would have cleared up the mean- 
ing, but the lengthy description of the process did not. On hearing 
the statement read that Mrs. Coolidge "made the wicks ready", one 
child said, "You mean wax." At least one third grade child volun- 
teered the statement that she did not understand the story. That 
fuller comprehension would add to the interest in this story is evi- 
denced by the fact that it has done so. It was read to a third grade 
which gave it only 37% of its votes when compared with A Chinese 
School. The teacher of the grade, however, who was struck with 
the possibilities of the story, reports using it in several classes since 
that time, with all necessary illustrations and related activities, in- 
cluding a visit to the candle room in the museum of the Jumel 
mansion, and states that the children like it very much. 

Another little understood sample was One, Two, Three, a story 
in verse of a little lame boy who played an imaginary game of hide 
and seek with his grandmother, neither of them actually stirring 
from their chairs. One child definitely stated that he did not under- 
stand that poem at all, while others showed the same lack of compre- 
hension when questioned. However, no data are available to indicate 
whether it would have been better liked had the meaning been 
grasped. 

Indications as to the effects of the familiarity of a selection point 
both ways. In a second grade the preference for number 21 over 20 
was 100%. Asked why they all liked the former better, a girl 
replied, "Well, you see we knew The Swing; we had had it so much." 
In the same grade, on another day, a boy, explaining why only five 
of the class voted for Proserpina, said, "You know why? Probably 
they had heard it before or something." One of the two highest 
preferences given by boys for Bessie Brandon's Guest over Boots 
and his Brothers, 85% of the votes, occurred in a 3 B class, composed 
altogether of boys, who had had a story similar to the latter in a 
preceding grade. A little girl in another third grade stated that she 
believed she would vote for The Water Dolly because she had heard 
Epaminondas, which was paired with it. The children of yet another 
third grade had heard all the four stories to be read to them that day 



Variations in Interest and their Causes 59 

(numbers 13, 14, 25, and 26), and were quite frank in their distaste 
for hearing them again. They were noisy and restless, and made 
adverse comments. The teacher of a 3B grade to whom Proserpina 
and Bessie Bra^idon's Guest were read, stated that the latter was new, 
but the children "knew Proserpina by heart." They voted 91% 
in favor of the new selection. In the same grade, samples 21 and 31 
being paired, the children voted 69% for the latter. The teacher 
said that this preferred selection. The Jiimhlies, was new, but the 
class had known the other. One, Two, Three, "ever since they were 
in the first grade." She asked if it was not usually found that children 
preferred new material, and evidently believed that they would. In 
a second grade, where numbers 16 and 24 were compared, it happen- 
ed that the teacher had just the day before read the latter to the 
class. They voted 71% in favor of the former. In a third grade, 
where the same two samples were compared, the children knew the 
former, and, although it was read in the favorable second position, 
78% voted against it. A first grade of boys had dramatized The Old 
Woman and the Pig, and voted 69% for Mother Hubhard which was 
paired with it. A second grade knew The Honest Woodcutter and 
spoke of it as "That one we dramatized"; 89% of them voted for 
The Queen Bee, with which it was compared. Another second grade 
which had read The Swing, gave 93% of their votes to One, Two, 
Three. Another with the same pair was more emphatic yet, giving 
100% of their votes to One, Two, Three, which was new to them. 
About as many and as weighty cases to the contrary can be cited. 
A first grade was read The Water Dolly and Epaminondas. Several 
of the children knew the latter well, and could not be prevented 
from telling each other what was going to happen as the story 
progressed. In this class 92% voted for the known selection. A 
third grade was read two stories they had had before, numbers 17 
and 18. They were loud in their expressions of liking for both these 
stories. One little girl kept saying, "I love it," and it was with 
difficulty that she decided between them. Another second grade 
had heard both The Old Woman and Her Pig and Mother Hubbard, 
but were not averse to hearing them again, rather the contrary. The 
same thing was true of these two samples in the same third grade 
that had protested so vigorously against hearing 13, 14, 25, and 
26 again. A first grade which was familiar with Mother Hubbard 
N'oted 67% for it against The Jumblies. A class of third grade 



6o Interest Factors in Primary Reading Material 

girls which gave two- thirds of its votes to The Honest Woodcutter 
in preference to The Queen Bee, had dramatized the former. A 
first grade which knew The Gingerbread Boy voted 69% for The 
Johnny Cake, which is practically the same story, when it was 
compared with Epaminondas. Another first grade, whose teacher 
had told them the story of Epaminondas, gave it 63% of votes 
against The Johnny Cake. The teacher of a 3B class was very fond 
of One, Two, Three, and had read it to her grade of boys. When it 
was compared with The Jumhlies, they gave the former a preference 
of 59%. A second grade had among its members one little girl whose 
mother was born in Holland, another who had been there. Their 
teacher had read them stories of child life in that country, similar 
to Boys and Girls of Holland, which was paired in their class with 
A Chinese School, receiving 66% of the votes. 

Just what conclusion is to be drawn from all this it is difficult to 
say. Certainly it cannot be claimed that familiarity may be counted 
upon to popularize a selection, yet it is equally sure that it cannot be 
premised that it will breed contempt. Probably some of the dif- 
ference is due to the nature of the child's past experience with 
a piece of reading matter. It may have been monotonously treated 
or tiresomely drilled upon. The teacher may or may not have 
handled it with appreciation. 

Possibly, on the other hand, the reaction against the known is 
due to the entire absence of the element of surprise, which appears 
so important a factor in interest. A child perhaps likes to hear a 
selection until he has exhausted its possibilities of new experiences 
for him, especially if it has many positive interest factors but is 
vague in a few places. There may be another phase, however, 
besides that of meaning or concept. A selection may not merely 
inform, but it may stir. The best known musical compositions 
are the best loved and the most enthusiastically greeted at any 
concert. There should be something corresponding to this in lit- 
erature, if all its values are realized. There can be no question that 
the unfavorable reactions of so many children to familiar reading 
material should warn against undue confidence in the common 
idea that "the familiarity of selections is a guarantee of the child's 
desire to read them again." But on the other hand it seems equally 
evident that the teacher should question her own methods when 
they develop familiarity only to breed distaste. 



Variations in Interest and their Causes 6i 

There is little doubt as to the existence of effects of age and 
advancement on interest. Certain selections commonly taught in 
the lowest primary grades do not hold the full attention of third 
grade pupils, whether because of differing interests in the pupils 
or because of the familiarity of the story. Certain of the longer 
stories which interest third grade pupils greatly do not hold the 
attention of first grade children. Length of attention span perhaps 
enters here. This probable difference between interests of children 
of early and late primary grades may account for a part of the wide 
variation in percentages for the same pair of samples, though the 
variation is still large when only one grade's votes are considered. 
There were two pairs of samples, 23 and 29, and 22 and 27, which 
were read only to first grade children in New York City schools. 
The percentages of boys' preferences for the former pair were 25, 
33. 38, 44, 49, 56, 67, 67, 69, 71, 88, and 100, and for the latter 13, 
19, 29, 31. 33. 37. 40, 41. 46, 47. 50, 53, and 58. Samples i and 5, 
and I and 16 were paired in reading to only third grades in New 
York city. The resultant boys' percentages of preference were for 
the first pair 67, 67, 69, 71, 75, 83, 88, 89, 96, 96, and 100, and for 
the second 13, 13, 19, 24, 33, 38, 43, 43, 45, 50, 53, 81. No attempt 
is made in this study to discover either the nature or the extent of 
the differences which may exist between the several primary 
grades. These grades are here treated as a unit. Except in a very 
few cases, every grade has voted on every pair of samples, but 
there are not enough votes from any one grade to afford results of 
a reliability that would warrant their careful analysis, and no 
superficial indications appear except those reported above. It is 
desirable that studies limited to each of these grades be under- 
taken. 

In conclusion it may be stated that whereas individual differences 
in native interest tendencies undoubtedly exist, environment, includ- 
ing education, the natural experiences of the home and their artifi- 
cially devised supplementation in the school, have large effect. Age, 
sex, advancement, comprehension, the experiences upon which read- 
ing matter is based, and the method of its presentation, all appear 
to share in the modification and development of the original stock 
of interests. 



CHAPTER VIII 
ADULT DISCERNMENT OF CHILDREN'S TASTES 

It was stated in a preceding chapter that the selection of primary 
reading material in the past has been governed by adults' opinions 
as to its merits as literature and its interest for primary pupils. 
Whether the adults' judgment is a fair criterion of primary interest 
should determine whether this method of selection is as desirable as 
it is simple. Certain data upon this point, obtained in the course 
of this study, are discussed in the following pages. 

The first evidence here afforded of the value of adults' judgments 
is found in the initial ranking of the nearly 250 samples from 
among which the thirty-one specimens tested were eventually 
selected. Diversity and variability were the chief common traits 
in the opinions of these judges. Sample i, " America," for example, 
was ranked i, 3, 5, 6, 8, 8, 9, and 9; sample '97, " How the Leaves 
Came Down," 2, 2, 3, 3, 6, 7, 8, 10; sample 236, "What Does 
Little Birdie Say ?" i, I, 2, 4, 4, 5, 8, 10 ; sample 243, " Who Killed 
Cock Robin? " i, i, i, 2, 3, 5, 7, 10; sample 172, " Pocahontas," 2, 3, 
4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10; sample 190, " Raphael," i, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9; sample 
237, "Washington and the Cherry Tree," i, i, 2, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10; 
sample 22, "The Brave Tin Soldier," i, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10; sample 
40, "The Crow and the Pitcher," i, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9; and sample 
138, " The Little Pine Tree," i, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9. Even where there 
was general agreement, one or two judges were quite likely to differ 
widely from the majority. Thus sample 132, " Little Boy Blue," 
was ranked i by five of the judges, and 2 by another, but 5 and 9 
by the remaining two. Blake's poem, "The Lamb," sample 117, 
was ranked 8 by two judges, 9 by three, and 10 by two, but one 
judge put it in the first place. These are all extreme cases, but there 
are many which approached them. The unavoidable conclusion 
from the inspection of these distributions is that whereas the con- 
sensus of opinion of many adult judges may be a safe guide to 
children's interests within the range of such material as this, the 
opinion of one is hardly more valuable than a random selection. 

Is the consensus of opinion of many a safe guide !* Some evidence 



Adult Discernment of Children's Tastes 63 

has been obtained on this question. The ranks of the 31 tested 
samples, as derived from children's expressions of preference, were 
correlated with their ranks as they were given by these eight expert 
adults in this large number of selections, the resultant r's being .043 
for boys' interests and adult judgments, and .166 for girls' interests 
and adults' judgments. That is to say, the rank value assigned to 
these samples on a basis of adult opinion was for boys no greater 
than a random selection would have afforded, and for girls but 
little more. 

As a crude means of verifying the surprising lack of correlation 
shown above, the 31 samples of the test were presented for judg- 
ment to a large college class in Juvenile Literature. They were 
familiar with nearly all the selections, and the nature of the unfa- 
miliar ones was briefly described to them. The samples were then 
distributed, one to each student, and they were asked each to read 
the sample held, and mark it on the back of the sheet 1,2, 3, 4, or 
5, according to the relative degree of interest among the whole set 
of 31 which they judged it would have for primary children. As fast 
as a sample was ranked it was passed on and another taken. A 
large number of judgments was thus obtained, ranging from 18 to 78 
for the various samples. The correlation of the average of this 
class's rankings with the ranks given by children was much higher, 
+ .379 for boys and -f- .501 for girls, but, it will be seen, still lower for 
the former than for the latter. Six months later exactly the same 
procedure was followed with another college class in Juvenile 
Literature. Again a large number of judgments, whose averages this 
time correlated -I-.272 with boys' interests and +.333 with girls', 
was obtained. 

Taking them as a whole, these three sets of adult judgments do 
not indicate very great value in their unaided opinions as ground 
for the selection of primary children's reading material. 

Somewhat more encouraging are the returns from a few individ- 
uals who have ranked the samples for children's interest. Nine 
such ranks have been obtained, three from university women 
graduate students in psychology and education in Illinois and 
Johns Hopkins universities, and six from men, including a graduate 
student in education in the University of Illinois, three students 
of psychology and elementary education in Johns Hopkins, a 
college teacher of education, and a university professor of educa- 



64 Interest Factors in Primary Reading Material 

tional psychology. The correlations of their rankings with boys' 
and girls' interests respectively are as follows: 

Judge r, Boys r. Girls 

Woman student, Johns Hopkins 247 .19 

Woman student, University of Illinois 296 .45 

Man student, Johns Hopkins 396 .391 

Woman student, University of Illinois 454 .481 

Man student, Johns Hopkins 535 .497 

Man student, University of Illinois 45 .688 

Man student, Johns Hopkins 514 .551 

Man, teacher of education 518 .623 

Man, professor of psychology 728 .714 

These facts, inadequate as they are, should suffice to protect 
against dogmatic assurance on the part of any teacher as to what 
her pupils will, but particularly as to what they will not, like; 
should suggest the advisability of providing a rich reading envi- 
ronment, of wide range, in which every legitimate interest may 
find food for development; and should stimulate to further scientific 
investigations, since conclusions and opinions of only empirical 
basis appear of such uncertain value. 



CHAPTER IX 
FINAL SUMMARY AND PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS 

The general recognition of the importance of interest in educa- 
tion and human affairs is shared by makers of primary reading 
books. There is, however, Uttle of rehable knowledge, though much 
of empirical opinion, as to the nature of primary children's inter- 
ests. Investigations in the field of children's interests have only 
touched the upper edges of the primary grades, and the conclusions 
from these studies have been expressed in terms of elementary 
children in general rather than of those of any limited age or grade 
groups within that field. The results of these investigations indicate 
catholicity of taste, some sex difference, a strong interest in animals, 
probable liking for stories of daily life experiences, and a deficiency 
in liking for poetry in lower grades, in spite of which, however, 
poetry and fiction are affirmed to be "the preferred forms." Partial 
selection and inadequate analysis to a considerable extent detract 
from the reliability of these conclusions. 

The contents of primary reading books indicate an absence of any 
general agreement as to what specific selections should be included, 
though there is very general agreement as to the classes of literature 
in which they should fall. Poetry and fiction, especially folk tales, 
constitute all but a practically negligible amount of primary reading 
material. The percentage of matter intended for belief does not 
exceed 4% of the total. 

The present limitation of classes from which reading material is 
drawn is a modern development, readers a generation ago having 
been characterized by a much wider range of subject matter. 

The present study is an inquiry into the interests of children of 
the first, second, and third grades, its data being derived from 
children's expressed preferences between the members of a pair of 
samples read to them for comparison, forty such pairs having been 
constructed from a total list of 31 selections of reading matter. 
These selections included verse, fictional prose of several types, and 
factual material, and were selected from a list of approximately 250 
samples for their probable high interest value for children of these 
grades. The results from these expressed preferences were com- 



66 Interest Factors in Primary Reading Material 

bined in the making of a table of the relative values and ranks of 
the 31 tested samples in the interests of primary boys and girls 
respectively. 

The samples were then ranked by adult judges for the degree to 
which they were characterized by the presence or absence of twenty 
qualities which it seemed likely would affect interest. These qual- 
ities were verse form, style, humor, surprise, plot, liveliness, fanciful- 
ness, realism, repetition, imagery, familiar experience, conversation, 
poeticalness, boyness, girlness, childness, adiiltness, moralness, nar- 
rativeness, and animalness, the latter abstract nouns having been 
coined to express the existence of the characters or qualities which 
they name. The ranks for each of the samples, as derived from the 
combined adult judgments, were then correlated with the interest 
ranks for boys and for girls to determine which qualities showed an 
effect on interest, and whether this effect was favorable or unfavor- 
able. Finally the crude coefficients of correlation which seemed of 
significance were freed from the irrelevant effects of one or more 
coexistent qualities by the statistical procedure of partial cor- 
relation. 

Interest characteristics of children are evidenced both by the 
analyzed and the unanalyzed data thus derived. The ranks and 
values which the 31 samples assumed in the interests of boys and 
girls presented several significant characteristics. The narrow range 
of value within which all the samples fell was particularly notable, 
indicating that they were all of high interest value, probably none 
falling lower than the upper quartile of all possible primary reading 
matter. Equally striking was the extremely low position of the verse 
samples, both for boys and girls. The history samples occupied 
both very high and very low ranks, the combined evidence of their 
several positions giving no indication of inferiority of history per 
se, but rather the contrary, and suggesting that not the class, but 
the elemental qualities within the individual specimen of the class, 
determine the interest reaction of the child reader. Sex differences 
were indicated in a number of cases. 

As a result of the correlation of interest ranks with those for the 
twenty possible interesting qualities, the latter appeared to divide 
into those of high positive significance, those of negative effect, and 
a middle group of probable slightly favorable or indifferent influence. 
Surprise, plot, narrativeness , liveliness, conversation, animalness, and 



Final Summary and Practical Applications 67 

moralness appeared most effective in arousing interest among both 
boys and girls. Fancijulness, repetition, childness, poeticalness, same- 
sexness, humor, and verse form showed interest values of varying 
amounts, but none considerable. Adultness, style, other -sexness, and 
realism seemed to repel, rather than attract. The importance of 
imagery and familiar experience was uncertain, slightly above or 
slightly below indifference, and different for boys and girls. In 
general there was high correlation between boys' and girls' re- 
actions to the several interest elements. 

Partial correlations more or less extended revealed that a number 
of these interest factors owe their apparent significance to a favorable 
coexistence with other actually valuable factors, whereas in a few 
cases it became evident that elements of positive weight had been 
overbalanced by the unfavorable qualities with which they were 
associated, so that their ranks failed to indicate their true im- 
portance. 

Of the seven apparently most significant factors, surprise retains 
the lead for children in general, with plot second, though depreciated 
in value. Animalness for boys is raised to a level with surprise. 
Conversation is shown to be indifferent or slightly repellent for boys, 
but of minor positive value for girls. Narrativeness and moralness 
fall to zero effect, and liveliness shows itself probably somewhat 
negative in value. Out of all the other elements freed from the 
complication of coexistent qualities only two prove important, 
childness, and familiar experience, both of which for girls rise to para- 
mount and practically equal importance, exceeding even surprise. 
The value of both of these for boys, however, appears only slightly 
positive. Repetition shows minor positive value for girls, but little 
if any for boys. Moralness and narrativeness are indifferent, fanci- 
fulness and verse form perhaps even negative, as is liveliness for boys 
and perhaps also for girls. Certainly none of these has any positive 
interest value. Humor except of a very broad type is markedly 
repellent, more so for boys than for girls. 

Along with the general tendencies indicated above, individual and 
group differences are to be considered. In general, there is a very 
large variability in different classes' percentages of preference 
within any one pair of samples. This is attributable to the narrow 
range of interest values within which all the samples fall, and to the 
complex constitution of any one sample, embodying as it does many 



68 Interest Factors in Primary Reading Material 

interest factors, as well as to the individual differences of the 
children composing the same class or different classes. Several 
causes of individual differences of pupils are suggested by the statis- 
tical data and other notes collected during the progress of the study. 
Sex differences are probably in part native, in part acquired as a 
result of the social environment. The natural environment probably 
to some extent determines interest by affording differing apper- 
ceptive bases in different individuals and groups. Effects of the 
supplementation of environment provided in school education 
are also indicated, both as augmenting and as decreasing interest. 
Whether a familiar selection is willingly heard again appears to 
depend in part upon its former presentation, and in part upon the 
degree to which its conceptual values are yet unrealized. Interest 
is affected by age and advancement, but whether because of fa- 
miliarity or of mental growth, including extended attention span, 
can not be stated. 

Further studies in this field are needed, to verify, extend, and 
supplement what has already been done. This is essential if chil- 
dren's interest is to be used as a criterion in the selection of their 
reading material, for the reason that adult opinions, individual or 
collective, are highly uncertain in value. In individual cases they 
may be of high reliability, in others little superior to random selec- 
tion, such differences having been found among highly expert pri- 
mary teachers and educators. 

Practical applications or desirable outcomes of the preceding are 
mainly in the fields of curriculum and textbook making, and of 
further statistical inv^estigation. /The great variability of interest 
shown by children in the primary grades as a whole and indeed 
within the range of a single grade, indicates the necessity for an 
equally wide range of reading material in these grades. Generally 
accepted practice to-day limits primary school reading within the 
field of literature. The justifiability of this practice is here ques- 
tioned. The ends which reading is to serve in life include information 
and interchange of ideas and practical experiences, as well as enjoy- 
ment of an art product. Since all these ends exist, reading curricula 
should develop abilities and motives for each. If it is true that 
"children regard the library not as a storehouse for knowledge, 
but as a storehouse for stories," is it not to some extent because 
the interest in stories is gratified and nourished and the interest in 



Final Summary and Practical Applications 69 

knowledge neglected and starved in the early years of reading 
experience? The interests displayed by children offer no justification 
for any narrow limitation of the field of primary reading material, 
and certainly not for the exaltation of poetry to over 50% of its 
selections. Apparently the only universal characteristic of chil- 
dren's interests is their catholicity. No recognized class of reading 
material claims all their attention. Hardly any, however, except 
humor, appears to claim it to a less degree than does poetry. Chil- 
dren like the story, or plot element, but they like it whether it ap- 
pears in fiction, in verse, or in historical prose. 

If an interest in any class of reading matter is desired in the 
future, related interests in the present should be sought out and 
nourished. Enjoyment of history, travel, and biography in later 
years would seem to be forwarded by some use in primary years of 
such material, so selected and presented as to incorporate a consid- 
erable number of interest factors, rather than by a studied omission 
until other and more favored types of reading matter have had op- 
portunity to develop a formidable advantage. Similarly, a taste for 
poetry might in more cases be developed were story poems dealing 
with child and animal life, rather than lyrics and more or less intro- 
spective meditation, especially emphasized in early readers. No 
criticism is here offered of the use of lyrics in song; "songs were 
made for singing," and it is probable that association with the attrac- 
tions of music will do more than any other means to develop a taste 
for their own more elusive or subtle melody and feeling. 

The whole field of primary reading matter needs to be over- 
hauled. The enormous mass of folk lore and miscellaneous story 
needs critical evaluation, out of which should come selection of 
a core of minimum essentials, to become a part of every child's 
common inheritance of the mental and spiritual treasures of the 
race. Some of the rest should be available for the child who would 
further gratify his tastes in this line; some should be rejected as 
too trivial or meaningless to justify the expenditure of valuable 
learning time when so much that is better is waiting to be known. 
Undoubtedly what is kept will be high in the elemental interest 
factors; it is they which have preserved it through the generations. 
A similar selection should be made in the field of poetry. 

The neglected fields of fact — history, biography, travel, industry, 
art, and natural science — all need development; not a crude rehearsal 



70 Interest Factors in Primary Reading Material 

of ill-selected fact, but skillful composition, incorporating salient 
interest-producing elements. There are a few such books to-day 
within the reading ability of primary children, but there need be 
many more, opening doors into many fields, and attracting the 
developing intelligence out to pursue paths which lead on into 
widening interests and worthier thoughts. 

The content of school reading, in fine, should from the earliest 
years be as broad as young life itself. No field to which a dawning 
interest points should be arbitrarily excluded, but rather the aim 
should be to afford a range of material inclusive enough for the de- 
velopment of all wholesome interests that already are active, and 
stimulating enough to wake others into flower. . 
" Further studies which appear especially important include in- 
quiry into the interests of children at different levels of advance- 
ment in the primary period, more specific investigation into the 
attractiveness of various types of factual material, and a study of 
poetry to determine whether it has really so insignificant an effect 
in the production of interest as the samples of this test display, or 
to discover what kinds or what elements of poetry do have attrac- 
tiveness as reading matter for primary children. 



VITA 

Fannie Wyche Dunn was born in Petersburg, Virginia, Jan- 
uary 17, 1879. Her early education was received from her mother, 
her school days not beginning till she entered the seventh grade of 
the Petersburg public schools. She was a student in these schools 
until her graduation from the high school, except for a year of high 
school work in the secondary department of John B. Stetson Uni- 
versity, Deland, Florida. After graduation from the Petersburg 
High School in 1895, she attended the Peabody Normal College, in 
Nashville, Tennessee, from which she was graduated in 1897, with 
the degree of L.I. In the fall of 1913 she entered Teachers College, 
Columbia University, from which she received the degree of B.S. 
in 1915, of A.M. in 1917. She held a graduate scholarship in 1916- 
1917, and the Grace H. Dodge Fellowship in 1917-1918. 

P>om 1897 till 1903 she taught in elementary and secondary 
schools, public and private, city and country, in Virginia and 
Missouri. From 1903 to 1910 she was supervisor of third and fourth 
grades in the Training School of the State Normal School at Farm- 
ville, Virginia. In 1910 she became supervisor of rural schools in 
the counties of Nottoway and Amelia, Virginia, under the auspices 
of the Peabody Education Board and the State Normal School, 
Farmville, Virginia. From 191 1 to 1913 she was principal and 
director of normal training in the Normal Training High School at 
Crewe, Nottoway County, Virginia, and instructor in rural educa- 
tion at the State Normal School, Farmville, Virginia. In 1914 she 
established the Department of Rural Education in the State Normal 
School, Farmville, Virginia, and was in charge of this department 
until 1916, when she resumed her studies at Teachers College. 
From 1917 until the present time she has been an instructor in rural 
education in Teachers College. 



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